


A Partial List of Things to do in New York (June/July 2011)

by thegeekgene



Category: Fake News RPF
Genre: Anal, Anal Play, Anal Sex, M/M, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Same-Sex Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-19
Updated: 2012-05-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 22:00:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegeekgene/pseuds/thegeekgene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On June 24th, 2011, the New York State Senate votes to legalize same sex marriage. On July 24th, the first same sex weddings take place. Jon and Stephen fill up the time in between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a kink meme prompt requesting Stephen have a thing for Jon's ass. It got a bit long, grew a plot, then stalled until New York unfucked itself long enough to legalize gay marriage. I had a minor heart attack, startled my dog, and started writing again before the Senate vote concluded.

The morning after that first night, Jon wakes up because his ass is being – cuddled. Is the word for it. His ass is being cuddled. His ass also kind of hurts but for the moment he's stuck on the cuddling. There's an arm draped high on the backs of his thighs and at the small of his back is the weight of somebody's head – soft hair, stubble, oh, look, glasses on the nightstand.

_Right. Stephen._

Jon remembers. Jon remembers and is suddenly totally fine with the ass cuddling as long as Stephen's the one doing it. The soreness is okay now, too. Really kind of nice.

The arm on his leg slides down and Stephen's hand – that _is_ Stephen's hand, if Jon had had any doubts about his memory or about the identity of the body in bed with him they're gone now because Jon knows those hands, has known those hands, has had them all over his body, now – Stephen's hand cups the top of his thigh, at the crease where the swell of his ass begins and when his thumb sweeps slowly up and brushes the tender skin behind his balls he can't hold in a shiver. Stephen freezes. Which, given his hand stays right where it is, doesn't scream 'contrition' or even 'reassurance' but what the hell. Jon folds his arms under his head and glances back over his shoulder.

“Hey,” he says. His voice is morning rough and cracks mid-syllable.

Stephen shifts, rolls a little, and turns to look back. His hand moves, too, to curve over the full crest of one cheek. He squeezes like he can't quite help himself and gives Jon an almost embarrassed smile. He's different without his glasses and Jon has seen it plenty of times before but never in his bed in the light of morning, never with rumpled hair, body as naked as his face seems, never with his head held inches away from the hole he fucked sore scant hours before. Jon holds back the quiver of memory but something must show in his face because the embarrassment bleeds from Stephen's, replaced by joy and mischief and a whole lot of lust.

Jon clears his uncooperative throat (that's something they haven't done yet; Stephen went straight – irony _so_ intended – for his ass and Jon is sensing a pattern here) and asks, “Enjoying yourself?”

“I am, thanks,” Stephen says. He flops over on his other side and puts his head where his arm had been draped before. His other hand rises to take over the place the first now lacks the mobility to maintain. He's less hesitant, now, following his own hand with his eyes as he squeezes one cheek and then the other, lingering, not quite massaging. “Do you mind?” He stops and meets Jon's gaze with worry in his eyes and a sudden flush to his cheeks. “Did I – hurt you?” he asks. “I know I – ”

“You didn't hurt me, Stephen,” Jon says, startled. “I don't think you've got it in you to hurt me. If you ever tried you'd probably violate some metaphysical law and then the world would end.”

Stephen's actually blushing, expression unconvinced. His hand is still on Jon's ass, moving, petting almost, an unconscious expression of concern. It's adorable and if Jon weren't already thoroughly enamored, that would have done it. He feels himself smiling as Stephen begins again.

He gets as far as, “I'm serious, Jon, I – ” before seeming to register the smile and falling silent. Then he goes redder and buries his face – well, in Jon's thigh, probably, but essentially in his ass. Totally adorable.

“You're in love with my ass,” Jon says.

Stephen grunts. Jon is delighted.

“You are. That's awesome. I knew the fangirls liked it for whatever godforsaken reason but – ”

“Like it?” Stephen says. He shows his face, still faintly scarlet, and says, “Jesus, Jon, you've got the Platonic ideal of ass going here. It's amazing.”

Jon giggles.

“Really!”

He giggles again. Not because he doesn't believe Stephen but because he _does_. And because he's serious, too. That's _awesome_. Their eyes meet and some of Stephen's earnestness melts away at whatever he sees there. He smiles and turns onto his stomach, freeing both hands to join in caressing. He leans down and lays a warm, soft kiss on one cheek.

“I am sorry,” he says, and Jon's pretty sure Stephen's talking to him for all it looks like his ass is being addressed directly. “I think I got a little carried away last night.”

Several more kisses follow, scattering the nearest cheek and trailing close to Jon's center, where the skin is soft and still achingly tender. His hands slide around and over both cheeks, squeezing, stroking, scratching, now and again, with careful nails and Jon – Jon is deeply turned on. He wonders why Stephen's hands are so much warmer than his own skin and how long he'll be able to resist grinding his growing erection down into the bed clothes.

“You should know,” Stephen continues and now – oh, god, he's licking, now, tongue darting out, a damp velvet caress, close by the cleft. He says, “I've been jerking off thinking about your ass since we met.” The scrape of teeth is unexpected and so hot and between that and the images being planted in his head, Jon whimpers.

Stephen stops, hands tightening where they are, and his head drops. Jon, trying desperately to keep from panting aloud, hears him take a deep breath and, long seconds later, feels the slow outflow of air against his hip. After a moment, composure regained, Stephen sits up on his knees, continuing worship with his hands and Jon realizes that Stephen is finding is necessary to exercise a lot of self-control just to resist – what? Fucking him again? Sore or not, Jon's pretty much cool with that idea.

Because he might actually be psychic, the next thing Stephen says is, “I really, really want to fuck you right now. And finger you. And fist you. And see how far up your ass I can get my tongue. And bite a bruise down there because now that I've had it, I am _claiming_ it and how else can I be sure you'll remember it's mine? And the fact that right now I'm pretty sure you'll let me – ” He looks at Jon through the hair that's fallen in his eyes, one eyebrow raised.

Jon feels himself go red. Plenty of blush to go around, today.

“I – uh – ” He swallows again, notices how Stephen's gaze flickers to his throat when he does. Which is – hot. And also oddly comforting. At least it's not only his ass Stephen's into. “We'll have to – uh – negotiate,” he says. “About the fisting. But as for that other stuff – go for it.”

Stephen's eyes fall shut. Jon watches his throat, this time, sees him swallow, then looks down at the hands still resting possessively on his ass. Stephen has beautiful hands.

“Yeah,” Stephen says. “That's – pretty much what I expected.” He opens his eyes and grins. “I mean, not that the rest of you isn't smokin' hot, too – ”

Jon laughs and is startled by a quick slap to Stephen's favorite part of his anatomy. He gapes and begins to demand what the _hell_ but Stephen is using _that_ smile and anyway – he wonders if Stephen can do anything he wouldn't find hot, right now. His cock is hard, eager for the festivities to progress, and one smack on the ass – especially from so appreciative a source – isn't going to dissuade it.

“As I was saying,” Stephen says, “while I have a profound appreciation for the whole of your delectable form – ”

Oh, there's no _way_ he can be expected to hear that with a straight face. Jon drops his face to his arms, giggling. He feels the bed shift and then the touch of tongue and teeth – Stephen's mouth, licking, sucking, biting down on the underswell of one cheek, working on that bruise he mentioned and, yeah, it hurts but mostly – mostly – A shiver goes through him, a current down Jon's spine. He moans and feels Stephen shudder, too.

Stephen lingers until his mark is a certainty but doesn't pull away, just moves on, kissing, licking, hands still moving, not so shy of the crack in between, now, and Jon can't help but think, _Stephen is making out with my ass._ It will probably be funnier when it's not turning him on.

Stephen's thumb comes in contact with Jon's entrance (still tender – and, Jon realizes with a shock, damn near tingling with anticipation) and _oh, fuck_ the tip just breaches him, barely, and he groans again, loud, out of all proportion to the stimulation and pushes back into Stephen's questing mouth and hands, then down, into the sheets. His cock is throbbing, his pulse rising, and he hasn't even moved since he woke up, jesusfuck.

Stephen's thumb moves away and his mouth lifts, which is a tragedy and even more a tragedy is that Stephen has clamped down a hand on each cheek and is _holding Jon down, what the hell_.

“ _Stephen._ ”

“Jon.”

It's not the Other Guy's voice but it's close and startles Jon into looking around, again, lifting up on shaking elbows for a clearer view. His heart is pounding, breath coming in ragged gusts and Stephen's is, too, but he's also smiling, sunshine bright, straight at Jon, into his eyes and Jon can only return it because, hell. There are some things you really can't resist.

Stephen shifts, urging Jon's legs apart so he can kneel between them. This is best described as promising.

Stephen says, “I'm hope you've had your insulin today.”

_Insulin?_

He goes with it.

“When would I have had time for that?”

“Hush.” Stephen clears his throat. Jon feels himself tensing. Sometimes – rarely, but sometimes – he both knows he should shut up and actually wants to. A disproportionate amount of those times already involve Stephen and that number has just gone up.

“I love your body,” Stephen says. “All of it. First because, whatever you think, it's _hot_ – ” He smiles, giving Jon leave to laugh. “ – and second because it's _you_ and – ” Jon drops his head, giggling again as he feels yet another surge of blood to his face. “And I'm pretty fond of you,” Stephen says and the softness of his tone makes Jon's laugh catch in his throat. “You're my best friend, Jon. Even if you weren't fucking _beautiful_ – ” he shivers and shakes his head as Stephen goes on “ – you'd still be – important. You'd still be the most important person – the most important thing that's ever happened to me.” Stephen is quiet for a moment, long enough for Jon to remember how to breath and lift head, again, just for a moment, just to see – 

Their eyes catch and what Jon sees is an expression of such warmth, such affection, that he kind of forgets for a second that he has an erection drilling a hole in his bed, that there are hands wrapped around his aching ass, and that sixteen hours ago he hadn't been laid in six months. He kind of forgets everything except that this is _Stephen_ and that, yes, he's got eyes invented for the bedroom and a throat that might have been designed for Jon to put his mouth all over and hands sexier than any common-use body part has any right to be, but take all of those things away and he's still – he's still Stephen. Jon _likes_ Stephen. Adores him. And it's for that, far beyond admiration for his body, just for being Stephen that Jon has spent something like a quarter of his life resisting the urge reach for him.

Jon's heart is in his mouth, keeping his breath away, and it's over the pounding he hears Stephen say, “But Jon?”

His voice bends but doesn't break as he replies, “Yes, Stephen?”

That smile, jesus, the things he would do for that smile, what wouldn't he do for that smile? He's wondered that for years and still can't think of a thing when Stephen says, “I really, really like your ass.”

 

Something Stephen doesn't like is cats. Jon was not aware of this forty-eight, or even thirty-six hours ago, but it's something he knows now. He learned it fifteen minutes before midnight on the evening of June twenty-fourth. Gay marriage had been as good as legal in the great state of New York for all of ten minutes and Jon was still basking in the lovely warm feeling of democracy well-done when his cell phone rang.

The caller ID said 'MITHRANDIR' so he answered, “Hey, Stephen.”

The conversation had started without him.

“So you know how cats are horrible, spiteful, disgusting creatures whose vile countenance withers fruit on the vine, whose very touch brings about untold destruction and misery?” It sounded like it ought to be rhetorical but Stephen paused as though he expected some response.

“Let's assume I do,” Jon said.

“Oh, good.” The next thing he said was, “Motherfucker, I'll _destroy_ you!”

Jon chose not to be offended. “That's probably the one thing your Nation would object to.,” he said. “I hear they like me.”

“Not you, Jon,” Stephen replied. “This _thing_. It destroyed my cupcakes.”

“Bastard.”

Jon flipped from Rachel to Anderson, who had no personal investment in gay marriage, of course not, nope, none, no opinion at all. He certainly wasn't trying to _kill_ that preacher dude _with his mind._

“Where'd you get a cat, Stephen?” he asked, when nothing more than mumbled profanity was forthcoming.

“Neighbor,” he said. “He'll be back tomorrow. He _better_ be back tomorrow.”

“Uh-huh. Why the cupcakes?”

There was another pause and a rattle of crockery.

“Aren't you watching the news?” Stephen asked.

“Yes?” What else would he be doing? “Are you – Are they gay marriage cupcakes?”

“Retroactively, yes.” A slight crash. “Ha! I was a little nervous,” he admitted. “It seemed like the thing to do. You want some?”

“What, now?” Jon wasn't wearing pants. Not that Stephen would care, but – 

“Of course not _right_ now.” He sounded scandalized. “I haven't even made the icing, yet!”

“Oh,” Jon sad. “Of course.”

“I'll bring them over tomorrow,” Stephen announced. “We can glory in the triumph of the gay agenda. They're red velvet,” he added. “Or pink velvet which – wasn't intentional. Ran out of food coloring.”

“Okay.” Jon wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with that. “I guess they'll taste the same?”

“Of course! Hey! Little _turd_.”

A slapping sound. Jon bit down on his free hand to stem his rising giggles.

“That's it,” Stephen announced. “The cupcakes are sleeping in my room, tonight. Shitbag just attacked the Tupperware.”

“You could lock him in the bathroom,” Jon suggested.

“Or,” Stephen said, “I could do both. See you tomorrow afternoon?”

“Sure. Want me to spring for Chinese?”

“That is entirely unnecessary,” Stephen said, “but very nice of you. I accept.”

Jon laughed.

“See you tomorrow, Stephen.”

“Bye, Jon. Happy gay marriage day.”

“Happy gay marriage day.”

 

How far up Jon's ass can Stephen get his tongue? Pretty damned far, it turns out.

Jon thinks he screams in that first instant but he'll never remember for sure and, if he ever abandons his dignity long enough to ask, it won't help because all Stephen will do is bypass helpfulness, proceed directly to over-whelming self-satisfaction, then begin plotting to recreate the salient points of that moment at the earliest possible opportunity. Because why would Jon bring it up if not as an invitation?

In any case, Jon will never know if he screams at once or if he drops into his pillow first, arms suddenly unable to hold his weight because _god, oh my god_ hot, wet, velvet, satin, flesh, whateverthefuck he doesn't care so long as it doesn't stop, glorious slickness flexed to a point pressing, requesting, demanding, taking entrance into his body. He is breached, first by questing tongue, agile and enthusiastic, and then by a finger, god, Stephen's fingers, solid and strong, a delicious counterpart to the insistent pliancy of his tongue. The outer ring of muscle, still stretched from before, is penetrated before Jon realizes that hand has moved, pushing deep within him, going in dry and that should maybe sting or something but Stephen finds his prostate before his body remembers what the protocol is for outside invasion. And then Jon's not feeling anything but ecstasy, spikes of it, Stephen's finger rubbing just right, right there, holy _shit_ , right there, and his tongue's still swirling around where he penetrates and Jon – Jon can hear himself, vaguely, over the rush of blood, the rasp of air through his parched throat, his inadequate lungs, gasping and moaning, cursing, not begging because the pleas shatter on his lips, turn to wordless need.

He's moving, or trying to, his burning, leaking dick demanding attention but Stephen is still holding him down, one hand spread, thumb and forefinger parting his cheeks, keeping him still but for the tiniest irrepressible tremors, denying Jon means of release even as he shoves him bodily up against it. Jon can feel every fiber of the sheet, the most minute friction sending bolts back against the tidal wave of sensation Stephen is wringing from his ass. And when a particularly violent wave hits, one that would have him coming, more than coming, half-catatonic if his cock could get any satisfaction at all, actual words are shocked loose, like he's passed through incoherence and out the other side.

First and most obvious, “Stephen, Stephen, fuck, Stephen, oh god – ” He's cut off by a gasp as Stephen gets just the right angle on the next hard pass over his prostate. “Stephen, _please_ , fuck – ”

The finger withdraws so suddenly he chokes, thinks he might actually cry, but then there's that tongue thrusting back in and it's not hitting his prostate but jesus fuck it's Stephen's tongue fucking his ass and Jon never beat off thinking about that but why _not_ holy –

“god, Stephen, Stephen, please, fuck, fuck me, please, fuck me, need, need you, your cock, in me, now, fuck me, dammit Stephen, fuck me _now_ – holy shit!”

He's dragged up, suddenly, roughly by the hips – by the ass, really, which is now in the air, and his dick scrapes along the sheets for a half an instant that's just not enough, dammit, _please_ and Stephen's tongue is still inside him, thrusting deep as it can reach and his begging gives way to a hard, heartfelt moan that – jesus shit he is actually going to cry as Stephen pulls his tongue out and then – then – then he fucking _tickles_ , flicks over the hole so light and gentle it's a physical pain and Jon is going to kill him just as soon as he figures out how the hell Stephen's strong enough to hold him still and hold him together when he's so fucking desperate and his whole body is about to break apart, please – 

“Stephen, please, I need – ”

A smack, sudden, hard to the left cheek, sting incongruous and welcome to a body tortured by the delicacy of those parting licks and Jon groans for it.

“Shit,” he hears Stephen say, feels his hands go tight again, like he's trying to resist going all out and spanking him and _why does that sound like a good idea, what the hell is Stephen doing to him_ and how long will Stephen make him wait, he needs, he needs, oh _god_ –

He feels the tremor of hands, warm and strong against his over-sensitive skin, holding fast to his hips, and a sudden thick heat, familiar from the night before, Stephen's cock sliding between his cheeks, and Jon honest-to-fuck whimpers, the wet head at his entrance, and it's pressing, pushing in. They've got no lube but spit and leaked semen and it's the burn he expected, and the stretch, and it's so good, so hot, so perfect and Jon needs it so bad.

“Please,” he's saying without meaning to say, “please, hard, oh god, Stephen, fuck me hard, don't do this to me, don't make me, god, please, don't make me wait, Stephen, please”

There's a moment of blind need when Stephen is poised, only the head of his cock inside, and Jon would have promised him anything, absolutely anything if he would just _move, please_ and he hears his own voice breaking -

“ _Stephen, please –_ ”

“Oh, god, Jon – ”

He shoves in deep and Jon knows he does scream, his voice will be rough all day, he screams as Stephen shoves in, balls deep in a second and at just the right angle and he doesn't stop, doesn't make Jon wait again, just pulls out and back in again, rough and needy and exactly right.

Stephen's hands are on his ass, kneading fingerprints into his flesh and if Stephen's agony-ecstasy groans are anything to go by they aren't going anywhere and Jon understands this, sympathizes, unclenches a fist and remembers how to make his hands work, how to do anything but beg, just enough to make a grab for his cock and _sweet jesus_. He moans again, loud, and begins to jerk himself off, harsh and unsteady as Stephen's thrusts continue, heavy, so hot, throwing all his weight behind the hard flesh shoved up Jon's ass, fucking him deep, so deep. Jon strokes and pulls and feels, Stephen, perfect, so right, shoving right up against his prostate every time and he feels himself talking, making words, again, and it's fucking embarrassing, he's saying, “thank you, thank you, oh god, Stephen, thank you” until a groan drowns it out and Stephen is riding him impossibly harder, clutching his hips and yanking him back to meet every thrust and it's good, it's so good – 

He comes with his whole body, hard and shuddering and shedding broken, gasping moans. His muscles close around the dick inside him and with one final shove, one that hits Jon's sweet spot one last time, makes him gasp aloud and spasm again, Stephen lets go, buried down as far as he can go.

 

Stephen got there around two the next day – the day before that morning – with a dozen cupcakes in a large plastic container and a separate tub half-full of icing.

“What, was icing them yourself too much effort?” Jon asked, covering a smile with his fingers as Stephen brushed past him towards the kitchen.

“I considered just bringing the cream cheese,” Stephen said, “and having you make it yourself. But I wasn't sure you'd have powdered sugar.”

Not quite willing to admit that this was a fair suspicion – there was something embarrassing about not having basic baking supplies on hand, even though he'd never baked in his life – Jon said, “Why not bring that, too?”

“Do I have to do everything myself?” Stephen settled his offerings on the kitchen counter then turned to smile back at Jon. “The romance is gone.”

He leaned back into the edge of the counter, arms folded across his chest, and there was something about seeing him there, so comfortable, so at home, that raised a flutter of sensation in Jon's stomach and he found himself smiling back.

“I don't know,” he said and moved to stand closer, looking past Stephen's shoulder to where the cupcakes sat. “Red velvet is pretty sexy.”

“So glad you think so.”

Jon flicked his eyes up and found Stephen watching him with the kind of lingering curve to his lips you only find in the truly content. It was a good look for him. Jon glanced at the cupcakes, all plump and moist and pale red (and it did sound kind of sexy when he thought about it), then back to Stephen, gazing up at him through lowered lashes.

“Stephen,” he said. “You wouldn't be coming into my home with _impure intentions_.”

“Of course I would!” Stephen made a grab for him and Jon jumped back with a yelp he'd never admit to. “Never leave home without them,” he added, smile blossoming into a full-faced grin as Jon backed up a few more steps, one hand pressed to his mouth to stem the flow of giggles.

“Thank god for that,” Jon said and, though his focus was centered on Stephen's answering laugh, he heard the doorbell buzz.

“Food,” he said and turned towards the entryway with something almost like reluctance. “Grab some plates, would you?”

“Have you got beer?”

Jon stopped to stare back at him and Stephen held out his hands in surrender.

“Mea culpa.”

“Damn straight.” Jon turned again.

“Not even close.”

Jon really should have expected the slap that landed on his ass. Another buzz at the door interrupted his flailing stab at retaliation.

“Go!” Stephen said, waving him off. “Shoo!”

“I'll get you, Colbert,” Jon shot back. “Don't think I won't.”

As he left the kitchen, he heard Stephen say, “I am simultaneously intimidated and aroused.”

Ten minutes later, as Jon settled beside him on the couch, Chinese cartons arrayed on the coffee table before them, Stephen asked, “When can I expect that great and terrible vengeance to be wreaked?”

Jon – distracted by the realization he hadn't actually eaten anything since, what, four o'clock yesterday? – blinked.

“What?”

“Vengeance,” Stephen said as he occupied himself trying to open the garlic broccoli without making a giant mess. “For my showing appreciation of your sexy, sexy ass. I assume it'll be great and terrible, otherwise what's the point of making dramatic proclamations about it?”

Jon hummed an acknowledgment and began to pry at the rim of the dumpling container.

“How do you know this isn't it?” he asked.

“You avenge your ass's honor with delicious food?”

“Delicious,” Jon said, “and toxic. This shit's got to have a lower nutritional value than those cupcakes.”

“Mm.” Stephen's agreement melded into satisfaction around his first bite of lo mein. “Sugar and flour,” he said, after a moment, “are found in nature. I notice you're taking part in the revenge feast.”

“Obviously.” Jon had managed, somehow, to keep from killing himself on the steam rising from the dumplings and celebrated by burning his mouth on one. “Once you're dead, my life won't be worth living. So I might as well come along.”

“Let us die,” Stephen said, “and never part.” It sounded like a quotation. “Together for the rest of time.” He swallowed another bite of lo mein. “Tasty.”

 

Stephen admitted he tended to get a little over-enthusiastic with icing, and had brought it separately so they could apply it to their own taste. The cupcakes were pretty fucking delicious and by six-thirty they were all gone – as, mysteriously, was all the surplus icing. Seeing as only children would eat icing straight from the container and they were both grown men and therefore not children, it was difficult to account for.

“Weird,” Jon said, when Stephen made note of this.

“Bet it was the cat,” Stephen said as he made room for leftover Chinese in the fridge.

“There is no cat,” Jon told him from the sink, where he was piling the dishes. “Not here.”

“You never know.” Stephen kept talking as they wandered back into the living room. “It could have followed me. Slipped in. It could even now be skulking in the shadows. Waiting.”

Jon yawned and flopped back onto the couch.

“Did your neighbor show up?” he asked.

Stephen abandoned his narrative and dropped beside him, close enough that their sides touched. “I bribed him with baked goods to take the little hellbeast back.”

Jon made some affirmative, less interested in what Stephen was saying than in where he was, warm and inviting at his side. He found himself sinking closer as Stephen slouched against him in turn and it was nice. Comfortable. Jon was always comfortable with Stephen – intellectually comfortable and, more remarkably, physically comfortable. The deficiencies of his own body mattered less, whatever attention he generally paid them focusing instead on Stephen, on the space he filled and how Jon fit in around it.

They stared at the TV, still tuned to Fox though Jon had long since lost the thread and had no idea what they were babbling about. Maybe because it was muted.

_Sound might help,_ he thought but made no move to correct it. Nor did Stephen. It occurred to Jon that he had been sitting in almost this precise spot when his phone rang, the night before. He was wearing pants, now, which might have been a minus, but there was also Stephen, which was always a plus.

The thoughts connected and he smiled. His brain was not subtle, these days.

“What?” Stephen asked. He sounded amused. When Jon looked over, he was smiling, faint and warm, eyes crinkling at the corners.

Jon laughed.

“Gay marriage passed,” he said.

It wasn't what he meant to say. He hadn't meant to say anything. But now that it was out, he was okay with it. Especially as Stephen's smile grew wider and brighter, still all on him.

“Yeah,” he said. “It did.”

They started kissing about then. Like the cupcakes, it seemed like the thing to do.


	2. Chapter 2

When Jon wakes the second time it's because the bed has stirred and a body is cozying up to him. This time he remembers at once and the feeling is acceptable to him; the sound he makes when a warm arm takes him by the waist and pulls him back against the warmer body he last felt collapsing on top of him is soft and happy and he could no more restrain it than stop his heart beating.

He feels breath on the side of his face and registers Stephen has been up to brush his teeth just as warm lips find his cheekbone.

“Hey,” Jon says. His voice his rough, his throat sore. It's kind of nice.

Stephen speaks without moving, sending pleasant vibrations into Jon's skin.

“Morning. You actually awake, now?”

A laugh quivers in his chest.

“Uh – was I not before?”

Stephen kisses behind his ear, which is so nice Jon finds the energy to sigh. Stephen lingers, retesting the response.

“Mm. S' nice.”

A soft laugh.

“Thought that was it.” He lays a few more kisses, tender, close-mouthed, on Jon's jaw and neck and it's not sexual – touch for the sake of touch. Jon could get used to this.

“You moved when I got up,” Stephen says after a short while and tucks his forehead into the back of Jon's neck. “Thought you were awake then.”

“Wasn't,” Jon murmurs.

Stephen lets out a gust of a laugh, sending a pleasant shiver down Jon's spine.

“Know that,” he says. “Now.”

They're quiet, then, and, as Jon becomes more aware of the particulars of his surroundings (he is disappointed to discover they consist of anything more than 'warm' and 'comfy' and 'Stephen'), he notices a hand on his hip, too flighty to be at rest. Fingers are stroking, softly, thumb circling – no intent to arouse, touch for touch's sake, again. But not only that. Something between a fidget and a caress. Jon smiles to himself and finds the will to turn onto his other side. He can see Stephen now, lying a little further down the bed than him, so for once Jon's not the one looking up. He wraps his arms around Stephen's shoulders and tugs him in closer as Stephen nuzzles his neck. The hand moves almost hopefully, first to the small of his back and then ever so slightly down. Jon laughs.

“Go for it,” he says. “But if you think I'm getting it up again, I invite you to count my gray hairs.”

Stephen laughs and hooks his arm around Jon's waist for an appreciative squeeze before sliding around to cup the curve of one cheek. His hand seems much happier and no longer inclined to fidget. Jon grins into Stephen's hair and hugs him tighter.

“What time is it?” he asks. He's half-inclined to ask the date, too, but it must be Sunday. Sex, no matter how hot, no matter how many gray hairs, does not knock a man out for two days. And, judging by the quality of light coming through Jon's west-facing window, if it were Monday, somebody would be looking for them by now.

Somebody looking for them. Another thing hot sex doesn't do is produce pocket dimensions in which the participants can live out the rest of their lives in hedonistic solitude, so it must be somebody who's neither him nor Stephen. Somebody who's neither of them but still exists. Probably more than one somebody – somebodies, then. People. People he's going to have to interact with, eventually. People he's going to have to interact with while he's got Stephen's bite radius mapped onto his ass.

_Huh._

There's a thought for you. Possibly even a moment of Zen. He bites back a giggle.

“Bout ten,” Stephen says. “Gotta go in to work today.”

“Not until this afternoon.” He cradles Stephen's head and neck in one arm and, with his free hand, begins rubbing slow, firm circles between his shoulder blades. Stephen makes a sound that's not quite a moan and moves closer.

All right. Back rubbing. Check. Stephen's spent so much time manipulating Jon's body he feels like he should reciprocate – or retaliate, maybe. He's really not up for fucking again (or physical mobility; that whole turning over thing took a lot out of him) but this is a start. Stephen's skin is soft, warm and slightly damp with sweat, his spine appealing to questing fingers; he shivers and curls closer as Jon's touch trails lightly down that center curve then back up again.

Jon is hit with a sudden urge and looks down, seeing smooth, pale skin and dark hair he can't resist the urge to run a hand through. His eyes caress the roundness of shoulder, the patches of body hair whose texture he hasn't yet had the chance to memorize, and the arch of hip Stephen's a bit weird about but Jon's always wanted to feel under his hands sometime, somewhere private, so he can take his time and enjoy them.

“Hey,” he says, urging Stephen to look up. “C'mere. I want to kiss you.”

Stephen smiles at him, eyes shining from inches away with no glass in between.

“If you insist,” he says, hauling himself level with Jon, “I guess I can – ”

_He has to have been expecting that._

Jon stops the flow of words with a kiss that begins hard, making the point. With no will to continue this line on either side, it gentles to brushes of lips, soft and shallow, before deepening again with infinite care, tender licks creeping into the wet welcome of each other's mouths. Jon thinks he should maybe have brushed his teeth, too, but Stephen doesn't seem to mind. Jon's ass is still being squeezed and stroked, just as Jon is still petting Stephen's back, and while the single-minded focus it's been shown thus far is a little weird (and, yes, fucking hilarious) he finds he doesn't mind. It's nice to be appreciated.

It's been a long time since Jon spent half an hour just making out with somebody and he's not sure he's ever spent half an hour naked in bed just making out with somebody. Even using that term makes him feel like an adolescent but, between his career and the company he keeps, that's not an unfamiliar sensation. And anyway, he's wanted to get naked and/or make out with Stephen for how long now?

It's Stephen who brings things to a halt, pulling away with nigh-tangible reluctance to say, “Nice as this is. We actually do need to get up at some point and gray hair or no gray hair if we stay much longer I can't promise you'll even be able to stand by the time I give you the chance to try.”

Jon is forced to agree that this would not be ideal. At least not today.

While Stephen showers, Jon surveys the wreckage of the living room couch then strips the bed. He leaves the sheets in the hamper and figures he can save putting clean ones on for the evening. When Stephen emerges from the bathroom, Jon pretends not to notice his eyes rolling at the naked bed and tosses over the clothes Stephen lost before they made it to the bedroom.

“Should go by your place and change,” Jon says as he starts past for his own shower.

“Gonna have to go commando,” Stephen notes. It's not exactly a non sequitor but it's also not a response. He holds up his boxers, visibly stained with precome. “Shall I take them home and wash them or would you care for a souvenir? Or, hey, we could trade!”

“You know, I think I'll pass.”

“But Jon! I think yours would really complement the Captain America shield!”

 

Jon is smirking when he comes back after his shower, towel around his waist, feeling wonderfully smug with every twinge of sore muscles and rather pleased with the more concentrated ache in his ass. There are bruises he can see – faint as smudges on his hips – and one he can feel on that lowest curve where Stephen bit down. Sitting will be an adventure he finds he's looking forward to. He wonders if there's something wrong with him for taking this much pleasure in pain but figures if he's allowed to be happy about any pain it's the kind that comes from a night of amazingly hot sex after six months of unintentional celibacy.

There are food smells coming from the next room and a pile of neatly folded clothes at the foot of his bed. Amused, he calls, “Are you dressing me today, Stephen?”

“Thought I'd leave that to you,” Stephen shoots back at once. “Seeing as you'll probably want to have something on when you're done.”

Jon goes over to the door and looks out, across the living room to where Stephen is at the island counter in his open kitchen. Stephen catches his eye and grins.

“My clothes?” Jon asks.

“Well, you were nice enough to get me mine.”

Holding in a laugh, Jon turns back into the bedroom, shutting the door on the inevitable catcall.

He's been provided with one of his oldest t-shirts, one that's developed Stockholme's and clings happily to his torso whenever he puts it on, the same black sweatshirt he was wearing last night (placed pointedly to the side, presumably meaning he shouldn't put on yet) and a pair of jeans he only wears when everything else is dirty – so rarely he's surprised Stephen even remembers them. They're a little tighter through the hips than he usually wears, not uncomfortable but – _Oh._

Seeing as he doesn't spend a lot of time checking out his own ass he's never noticed but he supposes Stephen feels they do good things for him. He'll remember that.

Also in evidence when he goes to toss his towel in the hamper is Stephen's t-shirt from the day before, which – ah, that's right. Which Jon came all over, the first time Stephen fucked him. He'd been on his back, clutching at the sheets and, now that he thinks about it, he's pretty sure the hand not involved in jerking him off had been groping his ass. And that all that muttering had been in praise of it, though he'd been too far gone at that point to notice. The shirt was inside out when Jon pulled it from the tangled blankets but the stain is now obvious. He bites his lip to keep from giggling then gives in when he realizes this means there's nothing between Stephen's fleece pullover and his skin. Jon recalls how it felt against his own chest before he managed to disengage their mouths long enough to peel it off and wonders if Stephen's nipples are having the same reaction. So much yet to learn.

It turns out Stephen's aren't quite as sensitive as Jon's, but, whatever he may want Jon to believe, he does enjoy having them groped while he's cooking. He's less reticent about expressing his appreciation of Jon's cooperation in the matter of his pants. At a guess, Jon's ass is smacked give times and grabbed seven before they finish breakfast. That total doesn't include Stephen pinning him over the counter top and refusing to let him up until he's been thoroughly groped for a full fifteen seconds, justified by Jon bending over to get something from a low cabinet. This is all done mostly in jest with lots of giggling and smartass commentary but there's a genuine eagerness in his touch, genuine affection, and the faint flush to his face once he lets Jon down makes it impossible to be as pissed off as he would be if anyone else had pulled that shit or if Stephen had tried it on any other day.

When Stephen asks, almost shyly, if he's – how sore he is, Jon gives him the filthiest grin he can muster and says, “Satisfactory.”

He wishes he could make Stephen blush more often. It's so fucking cute Jon wants to hug him and what the hell. He can do that, now. And if he's ever allowed to be sappy, it's on their first morning after. So he does.

 

Wyatt ducks around the corner fast enough for Jon to claim he doesn't know who just yelled 'nice ass!' at him down the corridor. This happens about ninety seconds before Sam, approaching him from behind, lays a smack on him and says it's about time he starts showing off what he's got and Jon's beginning to notice a trend here, too. May he knew this before and forgot or maybe he never had reason to be so aware of it but appreciation for his ass goes beyond Stephen. Good to know.

“Didn't realize it was was in such high demand,” he says.

“You're not demanding it,” she replies.

They don't usually work Sundays but, gay marriage aside, campaign season is starting early and through inability or lack of opportunity they won't sleep until it's over. They're also liable to do some crossover with the Report, providing a convenient pretense for Stephen, around seven-thirty that evening, to wander into the last meeting of the day. As luck would have it, Jon's up getting a cup of coffee, back to the door, when he comes in and Jon's writers are traitorous swine, so the first he knows of it is the slap. It's louder than it is painful, carefully away from the bite, but he still shrieks.

“Shit!”

As Stephen is nice enough to time the assault to the moment Jon's hands are empty, the only thing damaged is his pride. To the sound of a room cracking up, he whirls around and comes face to face with Stephen's smirk.

“Stephen, what the hell!”

“You shouldn't put the goods out on display like that if you don't – ” he goes for another grope which Jon manages to dodge “ – want them being sampled.”

Jon grabs his coffee and backs away, brandishing it like a shield, aware that the room has gone mostly quiet, settling in for a show.

“Nothing is here to be sampled!” he says. “This is harassment! Leave my ass alone!”

Stephen follows, herding him towards the table.

“It's only harassment if you don't want it!”

Jon runs into something. He glances back to find his own chair. How convenient.

“I'm pretty sure that's not how – hey!”

Stephen goes for him again, this time managing to catch his hip before Jon gets out of the way.

“Aw, baby, don't be like that!” Stephen clasps his hands and grimaces in theatrical despair. Jon bites back a giggle. “You know I love you!”

“And that has what to do with my ass, exactly?”

“Well, when I say I love _you_ – ”

Jon goes for his chair. Stephen goes for him with more enthusiasm than grace and manages to lose his balance. He has to catch himself with one hand on the table while the other ends up trapped under Jon, who has made into his seat otherwise unmolested. His coffee survives, unspilled.

Reassured on this point, Jon puts the mug out of harm's way then meets Stephen's eyes – simple enough, as they're staring at him from about three inches away.

“Hey, Stephen,” he says.

“Jon.”

That's pretty close to his signing-off voice. Jon was one romantic speech away from getting fucked through his mattress last time he heard it and that is just a low blow. Stephen is holding back a grin.

“Okay?”

Jon shakes it off.

“Oh, I'm fine. How're you doing?”

“Not bad. Got to grope your ass. That was pretty fun.”

“Glad you enjoyed it. I guess you'll be wanting your hand back, now.”

Stephen wiggles his fingers, making Jon squirm.

“Hey, none of that, now!”

Laughter from the writers. Stephen pouts.

“Well, if you're going to be that way about it.”

Jon lifts his hip.

“Get your hand off my ass, Stephen.”

Stephen springs upright, smiling.

“Yes, sir!” he says, and circles to drop into an empty seat around the table. “Hello, all!”

There's a chorus of hellos.

Jon says, “Joy and a pleasure as always, sir. But what are you doing here?”

“I heard a hot guy had overcome his needless self-consciousness and was gracing the world with what may well be it's first good look at his fantastic ass?”

“No, you didn't.”

“I missed you?”

That might actually be true. Alternatively, he let his team go home and came by himself to run a crossover idea by Jon's team. It doesn't even involve Jon's ass.

 

They hang back afterward, when everyone else has gone home to their families or their dogs. Jon and Stephen have neither, unless you count the shows themselves as children, and if that's the case they're right where they need to be.

Jon leans back in his chair and braces his feet on the table, hands folded behind his head, neck arched to follow Stephen's progress to the coffee maker. Stephen's out of the pullover, down to his t-shirt, and Jon's eyes follow the arch of his wrists – pale skin and dark hair – and the flex his hands – square and long-fingered, larger than Jon's own. Jon has always appreciated them, their proportions, their effusion, but knowing, finally, after so many years of wondering, what they feel like on him and inside him, and remembering exactly how much more beautiful they are against his skin than in the empty air – it's a little distracting.

“See something you like?” Stephen asks. He passes Jon his refilled cup and leans back against the table edge by his feet. Jon takes this as an invitation. He lets his eyes linger on throat, chest, hands (of course hands, one wrapped around the body of his own mug, the other at it's handle, thumb absently caressing the rim – distracting), on to the suggestion of curve where his hip should be, then down to the frayed hems of his jeans and white tennis shoes. Jon takes his time looking him over and then back up to his amused smile and brown eyes, crinkled at the corners and shining.

“Like isn't the word.” Jon is thinking about this morning, that moment before Stephen's mouth descended, and remembering the question he asked himself then. What wouldn't he do?

He looks down at his coffee and takes a sip. Perfect.

_Not a damn thing._

One of Stephen's hands creeps down and under the hem of his jeans, wraps around his ankle past the top of his sock.

“Hey,” he says.

Jon glances up without lifting his head. 'Like'? Yeah, maybe. 'Worship' would work, too.

Stephen squeezes his ankle, shakes it gently.

“Hey,” he says, again. “I know. Okay?”

Jon looks back down. He takes another sip of coffee, clears his throat, and asks a question almost entirely unrelated to the one he wants to ask.

“So when do I get to fuck you? Because I don't care how much you like my ass, my friend, I am not always going to be the one bending over.”

Stephen smiles, doesn't call him on it.

“I haven't bent you over anything yet,” he says and, with a significant glance at the table, adds, “But I could.”

Jon grimaces.

“Not without a fight you couldn't.”

Stephen's expression shifts at once from speculative to concerned. He places his cup aside and his hand falls from Jon's ankle as he says, “Are you okay? Jon, you said I didn't hurt you, if you - ”

Jon waves him silent.

“Settle down, you didn't hurt me. Were you in the room for all that screaming or was I fucking myself? Stephen, I haven't been with anybody like that in over ten years and we just did it twice in twelve hours. Of course I'm sore. Give me a couple of days and a crack at your ass and we can begin negotiations on bending over.”

The concern in Stephen's face melts away into warm delight as Jon talks. Then, for the second time that day – _must be a record_ – he turns almost shy.

“You really want to keep doing this?”

Jon stares at him. So much for 'I know'.

Slowly, he says, “Stephen. I'm not a violent man. You know that. But if you ask me that again I will hit you.”

Stephen's eyebrows go up.

“That's a yes?” he says.

“That's a 'your dick better not have any commitments for the next couple of decades because I've got twelve years worth of jerk off fantasies to act out'. Which could, brevity's sake, translate to 'yes'.”

“Ah.” He's smiling. “I can live with that.”

“I am, of course, also open to any jerk off fantasies you might have in waiting. Any that I'm suitable for, I mean. I probably can't stand in for Jane Fonda.”

The smile is gone. Stephen glares.

“What?”

“Jon,” he says. “If I may. I'm not a violent man either. But if you ever say anything like that to me again – ” He stops.

“You'll hit me?” Jon guesses.

Stephen picks up his cup and takes a drink.

“Nah. I'm actually not violent.” Jon snorts. Stephen ignores him. “So I'll probably just tie you up and fuck you a few more times. Worship your ass some more. Maybe suck your dick, if I decide to let you come. Theoretically, the more times I have sex with you the more evidence you'll have that I want to have sex with you. And as I won't be having sex with anyone else, there will be no evidence I want to be have sex with anyone else. Eventually, the weight of that much empirical evidence will have to penetrate even your protective layer of adamantium-reinforced self-deprecating bullshit and force you to accept that, while you may not be willing to take my word on it, the only person me and my dick are interested in is you.”

Jon stares at him. Stephen is looking at his coffee – glaring at it, flushed and grim. Jon is pretty sure he's turned bright red. He clears his throat.

“That – um. That might take a while.”

“I've got time,” Stephen says. “I think I heard mention of decades.”

Very slowly, Jon nods. “At least.”

A few seconds pass before Stephen meets his eyes, again. Slow and tentative and achingly sweet, his smile returns.

Jon drops his feet and sits up.

“There's a lot to get through,” he says and puts his mug to one side. “We better get started.”

He grins up at Stephen, whose expression is, in turn, brilliantly, almost maniacally, happy.

“Now?” he asks.

“No time like the present.”

Stephen puts his mug aside.

“I'll get the door.”

Jon rises and follows him, snagging his belt loops just as he's flicking the bolt to. He tugs on them, pulls Stephen back against him, close enough to lay his cheek against the back of his neck.

“Hey,” Stephen says, his voice soft and warm as his hands when they move to cover Jon's wrists.

Jon closes his eyes and splays his fingers, releasing the belt loops in favor of conforming to his hips.

“Hey,” Jon sighs. Feels just as good as he thought it would. His hips, his body, his hands on Jon's. Feels right.

“Okay?” Stephen asks.

“Yeah. Just wanted to do this for a minute.”

“Okay,” Stephen says, again – breathes, again. “That's – okay.”

Time passes, moments like millenia, and Jon stands still, holding on. Stephen's back to his chest, Stephen's hips under his hands and he's thinking – a few things. He's thinking that 'saccharine' might be the word Stephen is looking for because he's also thinking about what they'll do next but this occurs to him, too: _Or we could just do this._ Just this. Because - Jon's wanted this. The sex, the heat, the sight and sound of Stephen in the throes of orgasm, the thrusting and coming and penetrating – he's wanted all of that, but also this. This – ability. Access. Freedom might be the word. The freedom to show affection. To reach out. To hold on. Just for a minute.

Stephen's body and hands are warm and more than good they feel real – they feel solid. Tangible. This is a physical manifestation of something Jon's been feeling for so long he's not sure what his life would be without it and beyond anything else that gives this moment importance, as much as the first kiss or the first 'yes' or the first press of fingers or cock into Jon's body. Touch for touch's sake – important.

The skin on the back of Stephen's neck is smooth, his hair soft and when at last Jon thinks he can let go, that he's gotten what he needs from this descent into sentimentality, he turns, nuzzles a little, runs his nose along his nape and lays a kiss there. He hears Stephen sigh.

“Thanks,” he says, lips to his skin.

“Any time,” Stephen says and Jon smiles because – any time. It's like this morning, hugging him in the kitchen. He can finally – he can do this now.

Speaking of things he can do, Jon turns his hands, catches hold of Stephen's belt loops again and tugs him backward before letting go. Stephen turns and Jon guides him with a hand low on his back, over to the table, again, where he takes hold of his hips from the front and nudges him back into it.

Stephen murmurs something – maybe nonsense, but affectionate nonsense – and leans in to kiss him. Jon sighs as he accepts the kiss, then smiles when he feels a hand drift to his ass. After a moment, he pulls away and urges Stephen up to sit on the edge of the table. His chair is handy so Jon drags it over with one hand, keeping hold of Stephen with the other, and Stephen watches him with a smile. It's a good smile, the slight, objectless smile of one content with the universe, happy for everything as opposed to for something and he reaches out to touch Jon's face before he can sit down. Jon looks, meets his eyes, and steps closer, up against the table edge, close between his legs, and they kiss again. He holds Stephen's jaw in his hands, cradling him, and feels hands fluttering down over his waist to gently cup his ass and this – is good. This is good. This is a good thing they're doing here.

The kiss is slow and wet, as if an act of introduction, and when Jon draws away it's to continue this course, laying soft kisses on his cheek and temple, just below the arm of his glasses, then down his neck, stopping only when he reaches his shirt collar. Stephen lets go of him to slip it off and drapes his arms over Jon's shoulders as a slow track is kissed down his chest and stomach, lingering only briefly at his nipples, pausing to dip his tongue into his navel. Stephen squirms.

This done, Jon pulls his chair up close and sits, resting his arms on Stephen's thighs before looking up to meet his gaze.

“Mind if I suck you off?” he says, nonchalant.

Stephen laughs.

“By all means,” he says. “Do as your heart commands you.”

Jon cups a hand over the bulge in the front of Stephen's jeans.

“My heart commands,” Jon says as Stephen shivers.

He begins to stroke and moves the other hand to lightly tickle further down, between his legs, a barely-there caress of his balls that brings another shiver and an unsteady sigh.

“My heart commands,” he says, again, and runs his palm up to the button while his other hand continues below, running light fingers up and down, high on his inner thighs then back, the gentlest pressure making Stephen whimper and squirm. In a day full of amazing things, those sounds – soft, imploring – leave Jon breathless.

Jon keeps up his touches as he pops the button and draws the zipper slowly down, one eye on Stephen's hands, clutching at the table edge until the knuckles go pale.

“Jon,” he says and gasps as a hand slips inside and wraps around the base of his cock.

“Pull your pants down,” Jon says quietly and Stephen struggles to comply, gasping and shuddering as he shifts his jeans slowly down his hips. The hand at his balls neither moves nor ceases until it's forcibly displaced and the one on his cock stays where it is, unmoving and unbothered, even when his erection springs free. Stephen moans and stops, grabbing hold of the table again, forcing Jon to take over and tug his jeans and boxers down further, to his knees. Then his hands return, left thumb and forefinger wrapped around his erection's base, right hand delicately teasing his balls. Skin to skin it makes Stephen shudder, breath coming louder, body unsettled and unable to decide how best to gain satisfaction when none seems forthcoming.

“Jon,” he says.

“Just a minute, Stephen.”

He leans in close and blows on his balls, following with a lick up the sac. Stephen moans and says, again, “ _Jon._ ”

He doesn't reply.

Jon lifts his head away and strokes Stephen's cock, up once and back down to the base, pausing to run his thumb over the head. The contact is light, too purposeful to really be called a tease but infinitely frustrating. Stephen is whimpering, again, louder, less delicate but still compelling, body shaking. His cock is hard and flushed dark, liberally leaking fluid and Jon is fascinated. He wraps his hand around the shaft and takes the head into his mouth.

Stephen lets out a gasp, sharp and loud and his hands are suddenly tangled in Jon's hair. He says Jon's name again, chokes on it and moans as he begins to suck.

It's been a long time since Jon gave anyone a blowjob – almost as long as it's been since he took it up the ass – and he starts slow, remembering the old rhythms, that he used to be good at this. Just the head, first, sucking and caressing, up and down the shaft, still playing lightly around his balls with the other hand. It's too slow, he knows, torturous for Stephen, who's gasping, barely able to whimper, clutching at his hair and trying so hard not to slam up into him and fuck his mouth like he fucked his ass twelve hours ago. Jon hopes he'll be able to take that, soon. He used to be able to and the thought of doing it for Stephen make his own dick throb.

He sucks harder, sucks deeper in, strokes faster and shorter as his mouth descends. Seems like you never forget.

“Ohgodohgodohgod”

He's got Stephen blaspheming, at least. That's promising.

Jon holds him by the hilt and, abruptly, takes all of him, sucking hard and then swallowing. Stephen jerks, damn near shrieks, and Jon almost chokes on him. It sends a razor of lust through him and he goes faster, bobbing his head up and down, applies yet harder suction and keeps at his balls – just one finger, flickering lightly between them.

Stephen's shaking like something about to explode, moans constant and rising, body in idle motion, shifting, twitching, trying so hard not to lose control. His cock is a hot, living weight in Jon's mouth, heavy, and when he works it with his tongue the tenor of Stephen's moans changes, goes rough and guttural. He's back to Jon's name, now, pulling Jon's hair, probably doesn't realize he's doing it and that's fine. Deliberately, Jon reigns his pace in, sucks a little slower, makes his moves up and down a little longer, works harder with his tongue. He's barely touching his balls, contact so light it might be taken for a hallucination, and Stephen shudders, whimpers, moans deep and broken. He would probably be begging if he could form words.

Jon can feel him, hear him getting close and he's saying, “Fuckfuckfuck” and, hey, there's an idea.

He stops abruptly and let's Stephen's dick go, grabbing his hips just in time to prevent Stephen's spasm from doing him injury. Jon's name rips itself out of his throat, a sound of physical pain and Jon must be a sadist because that is so fucking sexy.

“Jon! What – What?”

His eyes are wild, hurt, bewildered, and when Jon digs his fingers into his hips and says, “Change my mind. I want your ass,” they go blank then flash white-hot, again. His hands plunge into Jon's hair.

“Jon,” he says, and yanks him in.

Their teeth clash and Jon tastes blood but it's hot and deep and dirty and in a few seconds he has to pull away. Stephen moans but lets himself be manipulated, his jeans and underwear, socks and shoes, pulled off and his legs spread wide.

“Come on, baby,” Jon murmurs, “lean back for me,” and Stephen does, spreading himself over the table and then, to Jon's delight, drawing up his knees and using his hands to open himself, exposing his entrance to the air and to Jon.

“There,” he says. It's either an offer or a direction. “Fuck me.”

Jon brushes a fingertip over the tender pink flesh and Stephen shudders.

“Yeah,” Jon says. “Wait here.”

There's a bottle of lotion on one of the side tables and Jon applies it directly to Stephen's exposed ass, getting a tremor and an impassioned curse. He wraps one hand around the enticing curve of Stephen's thigh, close to his knee, and slides a finger in. It's easy – surprisingly so. Stephen's muscles are relaxed for him and the second goes quickly, too.

It's not like it matters but Jon's curious. He says, “Uh, Stephen?”

Stephen makes a gravelly sound of irritation and need.

“I have a dildo, Jon,” he says. “Now will you please cut that shit and fuck me?”

And now Jon's brain is on fire. _Holy shit._

He finds Stephen's prostate and gets another curse out of him. Stephen's hands fly to the edge of the table, catching and gripping hard.

“I think I want to hear more about this dildo,” Jon says.

The third finger isn't quite so effortless. He twists them around and Stephen shoves up with a groan. His muscles are straining to hold this position, the effort slashing away at his already tenuous patience.

“Later,” he gasps. “Late – oh, fuck, fuck me, Jon, and I – fuck, yes, I'll – show you – fuck, just – yes, fuck!”

Jon is playing with his prostate, reducing him again to moans and whimpers and violent tremors. When he eases off a little, curious to hear more, Stephen obliges.

“Fuck me, just fuck me, I'll show you anything, fuck, please!”

Jon always likes to reward good manners and his dick is burning hot, throbbing in time with the tension of muscles surrounding his fingers. And a dildo? Really? _Holy shit._

When Jon moves away, Stephen's legs drop and he lifts himself to see, staring as Jon undoes his pants and frees his erection. The process that doesn't require both hands but using them does provide him with an opportunity to watch Stephen squirm, untouched on the table, lower lip caught between his teeth.. He takes his time smoothing lotion down his over-heated erection, the brief chill a shock and a relief. Stephen gives up on restraint and makes a soft, desperate sound as he drops back on the table. Jon watches his eyes close and his color rise, the shiver that goes through him, as if the sensation of empty air where Jon's body should be is itself erotic. He gives another little moan and Jon's not actually trying to torture him so he reaches one lotion slick hand to lay on his bare hip.

“Shh,” he says, and rubs a soft, slick circle with his thumb. “You're okay.”

“ _Jon._ ”

He shivers, the sound of his own name more of a turn on than it has any right to be, and steps forward, taking Stephen's knees in hand.

“Come on, baby,” he says. “Help me out, here.”

Stephen bites his lip, again, and nods, lifting up as Jon guides his erection to his waiting hole. Stephen makes a noise, too broken for a gasp, when the head presses against him and Jon keeps himself going steady with an effort. On being breached, his muscles giving way eagerly to embrace Jon's dick, Stephen closes his legs around Jon's waist and groans. It's like nothing Jon has ever heard; maybe it sounds different from this side or maybe he was too out of it himself but he doesn't remember Stephen sounding like this before; the low moans; the soft catches of breath; his voice breaking high whenever he tries to speak.

“J – Jon - ”

“Oh, god -”

He pushes in, an easy slide, welcoming but tight, still, and so hot, Stephen's body drawing him in and holding on, pressing, squeezing around him until all the breath is driven from him, all thought, all motivation beyond _want_ , and he knew it would be good with Stephen, couldn't be anything else, couldn't conceive of a world in which finally getting close to Stephen could be anything less than amazing but he never – never expected _transcendence_.

“Oh, god, Stephen - ”

“Yes, yes, fuck - ”

He barely notices, is barely aware of the moment he starts moving, starts thrusting, draws back and slams in, again, but he hears the noise Stephen makes, shattering and beautiful, feels the shooting, aching relief of ecstasy, and he does it again, pulls out, shoves deep forward and it's so far beyond good it's - 

“Stephen, Ste – fuck, Stephen - ”

“Harder, hard – fuck – harder, Jon, please - ”

Stephen tightens his legs around him, making his thrusts shorter, adding strength to them, and he squirms, hands reaching for Jon's hips, catching but unable to get a grip. Jon leans forward, bracing himself with Stephen's hip in one hand, his shoulder in the other as he continues to thrust, drives himself into deep heat, soft and tight.

Stephen begins to writhe underneath him, pushing up, clawing at his back, before he finds the angle to grab his ass, and hauls him down, off-balance. Jon gives up on ordered movement, grabs Stephen and clings, concentrates on meeting his convulsive flails, trying not to fall over as he bends further, nearly flattening himself to Stephen's chest, hips pressed tight to his ass, skin soft and warm and drawing him in. He can feel Stephen's dick, the burn of neglect in the thing that was inside him this morning, now trapped between them and grinding into his belly as he thrusts down, bodies crashing tight, so tight, deep as he can go and deeper and there's no way his dick is this long but it must be because Stephen is moaning and gasping and feeling every inch of it, begging for it, and when Jon orgasms it's to the spasm of muscle around him, to a sudden dampness in his shirt, to hands still clutching his ass and and to choked gasps of his name on Stephen's lips as he comes, too, hard beneath him.


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing Stephen does after Jon hauls himself up and out of him is grunt like a St. Bernard woken from deep slumber. The second, as Jon leans on the table beside him, tugging up his jeans, is push himself up on one shaking elbow and sigh as he turns his eyes down. Smiling, Jon watches Stephen produce a handkerchief from one pocket to gently clean his cock. When he reaches out for the hand still slimy with lotion and come, Jon surrenders it and continues to observe, amused, as it is wiped and the handkerchief folded and put away.

“My come is going to leak out your ass,” Jon says.

Stephen shrugs and takes Jon's hand again, then draws him in close for a slow, deep kiss, inexpert with fatigue and infinitely tender. Jon winds his arms around his neck, drawing him down so he doesn't have to stretch up and holds in a giggle as Stephen's hands skate down his back, coming to rest, inevitably, on his ass.

“Hey,” Jon draws back to murmur, looking at Stephen through half-closed eyes. “Tired of standing up.”

Stephen laughs and loosens his grip. He laughs again when Jon turns them around and slides up to sit on the table himself, putting them eye to eye. He draws Stephen back in, smirking when hands briefly clasp his waist before sliding down to cradle his ass. In turn, he begins to rub Stephen's back, again, skin warm and bare and so touchable under his fingertips. When he scratches up his spine, he could swear that Stephen purrs.

Their foreheads rest together and Stephen breathes out a deep, happy sigh. He says, “Thank you.” Jon shivers with laughter that doesn't emerge.

“For giving you an incomplete blowjob then fucking you through the table?” he asks.

Stephen snorts. “If the fucking had been anything less than spectacular, I'd have been forced to kill you.”

“Noted. Also noted is, I'm still sitting here, not dead and everything. So I'm guessing it was greater than or equal to spectacular.”

“That or my post-coital glow hasn't worn off yet. Whichever.” Stephen yawns. He's beginning to list, so Jon draws him closer with hands spread flat on his back, urging him to put more weight against him. Stephen settles into his arms with a softer sigh. “Can't say I ever really pegged you for a cuddler. I mean, I hoped.”

“I'm full of surprises,” says Jon, who pegged Stephen for a cuddler within ten minutes of meeting him. “Why am I being thanked?”

Stephen says nothing for a long moment then squeezes his ass. Jon laughs.

“For my ass?” he asks.

Stephen buries his own laugh in the joint of Jon's shoulder and neck. Jon settles one hand between his shoulder blades while the other drifts up to cup the back of Stephen's neck. He rubs his thumb in slow circles behind his deaf ear.

“Well, yes,” Stephen says. His head leans into the touch, so slightly Jon doubts he knows he's doing it. “And for being okay with my – uh – preoccupation with your ass.”

Jon laughs again and presses his lips to the space opposite where his thumb is still stroking. “Stephen,” he says, “I am all about preoccupation. Be as preoccupied as you want. You will not hear me complaining about you wanting my body. You will not hear my body complaining about being wanted. My body and I are down with being wanted and we return the compliment. Speaking of wanting,” he adds, “my body wants food.” He turns and brushes a kiss to Stephen's temple before nudging him back a step.

Deprived the proximity required to comfortably grope his ass, Stephen's hands settle on his hips. His eyes move up over stomach and chest before – dark and bright and warm, like the best kind of summer night – meeting Jon's. He's smiling and his hair is limp with sweat, falling and sticking to his forehead. Jon runs both hands through it and links them behind his neck.

“Feed me,” he says.

Stephen gives his hair a shake, doing little but rearranging the chaos Jon has wrought, and grins.

“Is that an order?” he asks.

“You better believe it,” Jon says. “Don't forget I own your ass, Colbert.” He frowns, then, fingers flexing fretfully against the back of Stephen's neck. “Which – we'll deal with,” he decides.

It's the first time either of them has acknowledged the essential awkwardness of their position, professionally speaking, and if Stephen didn't know him so well it would be incoherent.

Stephen bites his lip. “Later?” he suggests.

Jon nods. “Later,” he says. “Maybe after you put some pants on.”

 

They go to Stephen's place on the grounds that it is a) more likely to have actual food in it for their next two meals, and b) in the same direction but slightly further away. They stop off at Jon's to get what he needs for the night, neither commenting on their mutual unspoken assumption he'll be staying. As he opens his top dresser drawer, it strikes Jon that there's something kind of sexy about picking out the next pair of underwear he's going to put on after the current pair has been pulled off by somebody else's hands while that somebody else is standing around his living room, waiting to take him somewhere to pull them off. And it's _Stephen_. He shoves his stuff into his backpack and reemerges from the bedroom in slightly under five minutes.

Stephen grins at him, a faint flush to his cheeks that wasn't there before. The vaguely illicit feeling of what they're doing is catching up with him, too, in a less depressing form than it took back at the studio.

“You ready?” he asks.

“Almost,” Jon says and drops his backpack. He closes the gap between them in two steps and Stephen's expression shifts into sheerest delight just as Jon is hauling him down. Their lips are already open when they fit together, and Jon pushes his tongue into Stephen's mouth at once. Stephen makes a happy grunting sound and throws his arms tight around him, cuddling as Jon tenderly ravishes his mouth. The kiss goes on for a short while, all heat and affection, before they pull apart. Stephen is smiling, again, bright and absurd, and if Jon were not certain he looked the same way he'd have to make fun of him.

“Feel like you're doing something wrong?” Stephen asks.

Jon bites back a giggle.

“I keep expecting my mom to come in and ground me,” he says.

Stephen laughs. “If she had any idea what soaring heights of wanton debauchery I have planned for her son's naked body,” he says, “she'd skip the grounding, straight into restraining orders. Now. Wanton debauchery?”

Jon steps back and grabs his backpack, another unintentional tinge of adolescence.

“Debauch me.”

 

In the grand tradition of adolescence, they make out in the kitchen while frozen pizza is in the oven and, when the timer sounds, are startled into nigh-hysterical laughter. It's eaten slouched on Stephen's sofa with the TV on to AC360 and the whole thing is shockingly normal. Making out aside, they've played out this exact scene together a hundred or more times since they met.

Once the pizza's gone and Jon has, over Stephen's token protest, cleared away the debris, he pauses in the kitchen door to take in normalcy's new finish.

Stephen is as relaxed as he's ever seen him, settled back with his bare foot crossed over his knee, hands loose in his lap. His eyes are soft and, meeting Jon's across the room, they shine.

“Looking for something?” he asks, amused.

Jon shakes his head.

“No, I'm set,” he says, and returns to him. He climbs up to kneel on the couch and leans into Stephen, arms winding tight around his shoulders. His feels his own lips stretch into a smile, involuntary and inevitable, when the embrace is at once returned, then the rumble of Stephen's laughter as he scatters wet kisses over the side of his neck.

“You sure?” Stephen asks.

Jon nips at his clavicle, barely exposed at the top of his t-shirt.

“Very sure,” he says.

He hooks a finger over Stephen's collar and tugs it down enough to get a proper bite in.

“Hey!”

It sounds too content for an objection and Jon ignores it. Stephen squirms as he worries the thin skin overlaying his collarbone but he also laughs and the hands he slips into Jon's hair don't pull him away so it can't be too much of a problem.

“Hey, you know?” Jon says, and blows on the damp mark he's made, just to feel Stephen shiver. “It's really tempting to start giving you hickeys to see what the suit won't cover up. Maybe leave them at intervals. Along here.”

He demonstrates, trailing a finger up the side of Stephen's neck.

Stephen laughs, his hands running through Jon's hair and down his neck and shoulders.

“The spirit of scientific inquiry?” he says.

“What other motive could I possibly have?” Jon then climbs into Stephen's lap, settling a knee on either side of his thighs.

“Marking your territory?” Stephen suggests and accepts the quick, shallow kiss he's given.

Jon laughs.

“Okay,” he says. “There might be one other little motive.”

He goes in for another kiss but is reangled by Stephen's hands so, instead of their lips, their foreheads meet and rest together. Stephen's eyes are closed and his smile, as Jon watches, turns soft and uncertain.

“Stephen?” Jon says. He clasps his hands around the base of Stephen's skull, thumbs tucked into the hollows behind his earlobes. “Baby? What is it?”

He feels Stephen's hands slip from his own hair and settle, worryingly, low on his back, just shy of where the swell of his buttocks begins. Jon nudges their mouths together and is relieved when the brief pressure is returned.

“Baby?” he says again. His hands grow restless, begin petting his hair and neck and shoulders, one drifting up to brush his cheek. “Talk to me, Stephen.”

The hands on his back give him a brief squeeze.

“Sorry,” Stephen says, though his eyes don't open. “It just made me think. How long before other people know about this?”

Ambiguous way to put it. How long before other people know? How long before other people are told? How long before other people find out without being told? The care Stephen gives to his words is not lost on Jon. He takes a moment to return the favor, giving the problem, and how best to respond, due consideration. Their foreheads are still pressed together and they breath the same air; Jon runs his fingertips back and forth through the short hairs at Stephen's nape and then, decision made, tugs him across that short distance for another kiss.

“Think that's up to you, babe,” he says.

A fold appears in the space between Stephen's brows and his eyes flicker open.

“How do you mean? Jon?”

“I gave you your own TV show, Stephen. This'll look bad for both of us but you're the one fucking the boss.” He shifts a little and smirks at the twinge of his bruise. “Which you're fantastic at, I should add. Be sure to tell the papers that.”

Stephen huffs out a sound that aspires to be a laugh and drops his head to rest on Jon's shoulder. Jon's fingers, still lingering at the back of his neck, begin to rub firm circles there.

“That's not quite how it happened,” Stephen says. He might be referring to the fucking or the show.

“I know that. You know that. The tabloid editors running find and replace on their sex scandal template will probably know that, too.”

Stephen sighs. It lifts his shoulders and expands his back and that, for a while, is that last move he makes. Jon waits, his attention split between the unpleasant subject at hand, how nice it feels being close like this, and the juxtaposition between the two. Stephen sighs again and Jon at last urges his head back and lays a kiss on his forehead. Stephen meets his eyes.

“You can't really pin this all on me,” he says.

Jon replies, “Watch me.”

“Jon - ”

“Joke, Stephen. I'm just sayin'. I think it's better if you take the lead here. Tell me what you want to do and if it's not totally stupid, we'll go with it.”

Stephen laughs.

“It'll probably be totally stupid.”

Jon throws up his hands.

“Then we destupid it! I'm not seeing a problem, here.”

As he speaks, Jon becomes aware of a touch trailing up his back, brushing over his shoulder. His hands have come to rest on Stephen's biceps and he watches with interest as Stephen's hand skims down the soft inside of his upper arm and over the tender bend of his elbow. Guessing his objective, Jon meets him halfway, their hands entwining in the air beside them. He hasn't really seen them together before.

Stephen's are a little bigger than his, which he knew, and more rectangular, made of clean lines and ninety degree angles, from strong, straight fingers to the dark hairs on the backs of his palms. Competent. Expressive. Masculine. Jon's aren't _not_ those things but they're also not – he's never put it in quite these terms before but maybe this is them in microcosm. Jon's hands are darker, more furry than hairy, more joint than line, not so neatly defined. Jon has guy hands, he thinks. Hands belonging to somebody whose everyday vocabulary employs the word 'dude' and hasn't had a substantial change to his wardrobe since undergrad. Stephen looks natural in French cuffs.

But together like this – Jon's not going to say they look right because he's already perilously close to pulling grand romantic gestures or ghostwriting for Nora Roberts or something. But they do look – good. They look good.

Again he says, “Tell me what you want to do. We'll go from there.”

This time, Stephen does not immediately protest. Jon looks over and finds his eyes fixed on their entwined hands. He smiles.

 

Every six months or so, somebody asks Jon why he never got married. They probably ask Stephen, too. They ask everybody. And, like everybody, Jon has a standard answer.

“Have you ever seen a TV show take on sentience and go on a jealous rampage? Me, neither. I'd like to keep it that way.”

It works because it's kind of true. It's usually true. But it's not this time, or at least he's not so worried about it. To continue creepily anthropomorphizing, he can't see the show getting jealous of Stephen; it's loved Stephen longer than it's loved him.

And he'd have to ask, but he doesn't think the Report would mind, either. In fact - 

_Hell._

In his head, he's laughing. And that's the point. That's always been the point. That's what they want, it's what the shows want, it's what the shows _are_. Beyond ratings and audiences and the rest of the world, it's a contest between the two of them, trying to get the other guy to crack first. So, no. The shows aren't going to be jealous. The shows are going to be _stoked_.

 

“I don't think we can do subterfuge,” Stephen says.

He's looking at their hands and Jon is looking at him and that's pretty much what Jon expected him to say.

He replies, “Is that a comment on my acting?”

“Yes.”

Jon gasps and tumbles sideways off Stephen's lap, dragging him along by the hand. With some shuffling and giggling, he ends up against the arm of the couch with his legs spread, Stephen cradled between them. Stephen has retained custody of his hand and settled it, linked with his, on one side of Jon's chest while his cheek rests against the other. Jon would think he's listening to his heartbeat but that's the deaf ear. He supposes they can represent cliches without enacting them.

“Sorry, were you being mortally offended there?” Stephen asks. “Because I'm not feeling the chastisement.”

“I was getting leg cramps,” Jon replies. “Wanna to put out an announcement or just make out in Time Square?”

Stephen laughs, soft and earthy. From this angle, Jon can most clearly see his eyelashes, half-lowered, and a certain smoothness signaling serenity in the oft-lined skin at the corner of his eye. He buries his free hand in Stephen's hair and gently scratches his scalp. There's a soft sigh in response and a few more muscles relax.

“M' not sure that's necessary,” Stephen says. “Do you really want to come out?”

“You're the one who said we couldn't do subterfuge.”

“Yeah, but I didn't mean – do you hold a press conference every time you fuck somebody?”

“I've considered it.”

Stephen turns and bites his clavicle.

“Hey!”

“Hush.” Stephen settles all his weight against Jon's squirming form.

“I think you killed me.”

“That makes things much easier. What do you think?”

“I think a murder trial is more complicated than a high profile boyfriend.”

Stephen laughs.

“Hey,” he says. “You're my boyfriend, now.”

Jon wraps his arms around Stephen and hauls him up close. “Well observed,” he says and kisses him. Stephen stops laughing to return it, hands sliding into his hair, and for a few long moments there's silence.

“Mm. Finished?” Jon asks.

Stephen crosses the breath of space between them to press their mouths together, again. Seconds pass.

“Never,” he says. It doesn't really sound like a joke and his eyes are soft under lowered lashes.

Jon feels a rush of warmth and hugs him tighter.

“Oh, good.”

When he draws away to look properly at Stephen he adds, “Not used to that, yet.”

“Me neither,” Stephen replies. He touches his forehead to Jon's and closes his eyes.

“So you think – ” Jon breaks off as Stephen shifts, nestling – burrowing, into his side. He adjusts his grip around him and tries again. “You want to keep doing what we're doing? Let people figure it out on their own?”

“Why not?” He snorts softly. “Not like anyone would believe us, anyway. Especially not given the timing.”

It takes Jon a moment to remember what timing he's talking about. Then he nods.

“I can see that,” he says. “All right. I'm good with this plan.”

“Of course you are.” Stephen's mouth has found his neck, again, and his teeth are sharp against the soft skin. It almost distracts Jon from the hand creeping along the waistband of his jeans. “You don't actually have to do anything,” he adds and trails his fingers over his zipper. Jon squirms.

“I – ah – I thought you were falling asleep on me.”

“So did I.” Stephen licks him and, before Jon is done processing how this makes him feel, he's being kissed, hot and deep, and Stephen's tongue is insinuating itself into his mouth like it belongs there. Just like that, Jon's hard, again. It's both too impressive and too distracting to allow him to wonder at it for long. Granted, he's always been kind of easy.

“Just remembered I hadn't blown you yet,” Stephen says. His hand is down Jon's pants, wrapping around his dick, and making him groan. “That okay?”

Jon feels like he should say something but all that comes to mind is 'yes, please' and he doesn't really have the breath for it. Stephen doesn't seem to mind. He shifts down Jon's body, skimming his hand along his clothed torso, and lands between his legs. Jon lifts his hips when prompted, allowing Stephen to pull down his jeans, the drag of fabric prompting an abortive moan. Then his cock, fully erect, is released from his underwear and he feels hands cradling his ass, again.

“Mm,” Stephen says, again. “Hey, Jon.”

Jon looks down at him, sees his dark hair all awry, falling on his forehead, and a lazy smile on his lips, inches from where Jon's cock is waiting.

“Hey,” he says.

Stephen moves a hand to take off his glasses and hands them to Jon, who folds them and arches his back to put them on the end table, out of harm's way. His erection shifts in the cool apartment air and he grits his teeth.

“Jon.”

Stephen is looking up at him, still smiling, eyes yet warmer with nothing in the way. The hand he used to pass them up goes, as Jon watches, to his cock, thumb and finger forming a circle near the base, never making direct contact. A sound comes from the back of Jon's throat, involuntary and impatient.

“Jon,” Stephen says, again, and he's blushing, Jon realizes, with more than arousal. He's hesitating, or maybe wondering how to phrase whatever he's got to say. Jon slips the fingers of one hand back into his hair and gently massages his scalp. Stephen leans into the touch. “S'nice,” he says.

“Uh-huh.”

Stephen wraps his hand around Jon's erection and his own grip tenses involuntarily, pulling Stephen's hair. And Stephen sighs, content.

“That's what I wanted to say,” he murmurs, eyes half-lidded as he slowly strokes the shaft. Jon is focusing on his voice, trying not to squirm as little tremors of pleasure radiate through his body. Stephen licks the head and he fights the urge to thrust up into his mouth.

Like he's read his mind – and it can't be hard, at the moment – Stephen says, “You can,” and Jon shivers. His eyes want to close but he keeps them on Stephen, still speaking in slow, measured tones, and follows the slick pinkness of his tongue when it darts out to moisten his lips. He's not meeting Jon's eyes, focusing on his cock with anticipation Jon finds familiar.

“You can fuck my mouth,” Stephen says. “Don't worry too much.” He smiles, lazy, a little embarrassed. “I can take it,” he says and waits, carefully casual in a way that can only translate to trepidation.

Jon's first thought it _oh, thank god_ , not so much because of how hot that is (and it is hot, _holy shit_ it's hot) as because it means he doesn't have to explain anything. He scratches Stephen's scalp, hoping to reassure, and swallows.

“I, uh, was going to tell you,” he says. “Me, too. I mean – I can do that. And – ” He decides to reserve that, for the moment. “Or I could,” he says, and looks away. “It's been a while.”

He keeps looking at the darkened TV screen, even when Stephen gives his ass a gentle squeeze. The finger at his entrance is harder to ignore; he gasps and pushes into it, eyes slamming closed then flying to Stephen, wide open.

Stephen smirks and runs his fingertip in tight little circles around his hole. It's too light to be anything but frustrating and Jon tightens his grip on his hair and curses.

“Just so we're on the same page,” Stephen says.

Jon murmurs, “Oh, yeah,” trailing off into a moan as Stephen's finger breaches him. He pushes down, impaling himself. Stephen makes another happy sighing sound then wraps his lips around the head of Jon's cock.

And _fuck_ it's hot – wet – he's sucking hard and it's been way too fucking long (too long since the last time Jon did this, too long since they met, whichever, both) and Jon takes Stephen at his word and thrusts, sinking deeper into his eager mouth. The hand is gone from his shaft, back to Jon's ass, where Stephen begins twisting the finger he's worked inside. Jon pushes back onto it, sweet penetration, but that means drawing out of the slick suction of his mouth and he has to thrust back in, again. He goes in to the hilt, this time, swallowed easily with no hint of a gag reflex and it's so good, molten, and Stephen is so hot with his mouth wide around the base, eyes closed as gently as if for the first sip of really good coffee. Jon groans.

The finger up his ass hits his prostate in a burst of jewel-bright sensation. He gasps then moans as it shifts and teases and he breathes out, “Another,” before he has to, _has to_ push back on what he has.

Back into his mouth, rougher than he means to be but Stephen's taking it all, just like he said he could, and this time when he jerks back there's another finger in waiting and he's not quite expecting it, penetration doubled and going deeper, all the way in. He lets out a whine and starts thrusting erratically. His hands are both tangled in Stephen's hair and he's pushing him down as he thrusts up, feeling him suck and swallow and his fingers are hitting Jon's prostate, a rough, dry presence inside, not enough to satisfy and he moans louder. The hand not fucking him is squeezing his ass, stroking and rubbing the mound of flesh it's claimed, and over his own moans he can hear the sounds Stephen makes, restless and encouraging.

“Oh, fuck – fuck – Stephen – ”

A low growl sends spikes of arousal down his spine and vibrations through his cock. He thrusts again, into his mouth, and this time Stephen follows him back down and holds him, fingers shoved deep, working his prostate and swallowing him down and it's so much of not quite enough he drowns in it, lets a wave of quick-rising sensation break him. He comes and feels Stephen work every pulse, taking it deep, drinking it all down.

Stephen waits until he's finished, until his body goes slack, then pulls free and crawls back on top of him. He kisses him, offering his tongue for Jon to taste and he does, sucking his own flavor from Stephen's mouth. He can feel Stephen's erection through his pants and grunts softly before pushing him back.

“Jon?”

“St – Here – ”

He shakes off Stephen's hands, grasping at his shirt, and squirms over onto his stomach, hips rubbing against Stephen's trapped cock as he goes. He hears him gasp then moan when Jon arches his back, offering himself up. Warm palms close on each cheek and squeeze. He feels the denimed bulge push and grind between grasping hands and presses his face down into the cushions, laughing. Stephen gives a growl of frustration and one hand releases, drawing back to place a stinging slap that makes him gasp and push back.

Jon's cheeks feel hot and he has no idea when being spanked became one of his turn-ons but it's probably Stephen's fault, Stephen and his desperate eagerness to get at his ass and do anything to it that can be done. He hears Stephen groan and feels him shudder then some shifting of weight that means he's fumbling at his fly, muttering incoherent oaths. Stephen might be cussing Jon out or telling him how sexy he finds him or cussing him out for being sexy. Jon can't tell and he laughs, again, earning another slap moments before Stephen interrupts himself with a choked off gasp.

Jon's sweater and shirt are shoved up his shoulderblades before that hand closes back on his warmly-stung ass and he feels hot, damp flesh sliding rigid through the cleft. Stephen moans and Jon shivers as he begins to thrust, squeezing handfuls of flesh and drawing them together around his cock.

It strikes Jon, suddenly, that this is both absurd – absurd like sex is always absurd – and one of the hottest things he's ever experienced. The noises Stephen's making are harsh and needy and Jon's body thinks his brain can get down here and do it itself if it wants to get turned on but he can listen, fuck can he ever listen, and he feels those hands, strong and warm, wrapped around his ass like they never want to let go, and Stephen's cock, leaking heat, sliding faster as his own fluids ease the way. The moans reconfigure into something close to English as Jon smiles down into the cushions.

“Jon – Jon, fuck – Jon – can't – believe – can't – fuck, you – you're so – so fucking – letting me _do_ this, you're so hot – your ass, Jon – fuck – Jon – ah!”

The words drop off, again, into a guttural moan as his hips snap forward harder, his dick moves faster between Jon's cheeks. He gasps and moans, again, and then he's shuddering and releasing, all his weight falling on Jon as his orgasm spills out across the small of his back.

Jon shivers and sighs, pressing back and unable to get enough of Stephen's touch, of his naked desire. He flexes around Stephen's still-twitching dick and Stephen moans, again, then drops forward, arms encircling Jon's waist. His face presses between Jon's shoulderblades, mouth to bare skin, just below where his shirt is wrinkled. His breath comes in hot gasps against his spine and makes him shiver, again.

“Mm. Stephen,” he says.

A grunt.

“Stephen. Baby.”

A sigh.

“Hang on.”

His weight shifts, again, and lifts, hands settling back on Jon's hips. Then wet velvet is brushing the dampness on his back – Stephen is licking him clean. Jon's heart gives a painful lurch and he goes still, nerves quivering with each tender lap. It's so – weird. So hot. So – 

“God, Stephen.”

Stephen stops with a sudden, tight gasp. His mouth presses down into the hollow of Jon's back and, after a moment, air is released in a rush. Hair stands up on the back of Jon's neck and he makes a frankly embarrassing whimpering sound then gropes back with one hand.

“ _Stephen_ ,” he says and catches hold of his wrist with a breathless laugh. “What's a guy got to do to get cuddled here?”

Stephen bursts out laughing and Jon is dragged up and back, into his arms. He snuggles against him, giggling, and pulls Stephen's arms tighter around him. Stephen's cheek knocks into his temple. Jon tilts his head back just as Stephen is turning his and their lips meet, awkward and off-center, but soon corrected for a series of wet kisses, brief by necessity, over-whelmed with quiet laughter.

They get to bed, eventually. It just takes some time.


	4. Chapter 4

The problem with letting people figure it out for themselves is that there's no outward difference between the 'homoerotic subtext is funny' faux-flirtation of before and the 'I am going to rip your clothes off as soon as we're alone' actual flirtation of after. It feels different to them – warmer, more exciting, substantive promises that were empty the week before – but it turns out that really is just them.

The first day back – Monday, the next day – Sam asks Jon if the triumph of the homosexual agenda in New York has inspired him to bring to light any torrid, secret gay affairs he might have yet lurking in the shadows.

“Yes,” he says.

She laughs.

He brings along more of Stephen's celebratory cupcakes. (Apparently he made another batch after he talked to Jon, and then a third the next morning before he came over. Why? Why not?) Their origins explained, no one finds it particularly unusual that Jon, a theoretically eligible bachelor of wealth and fame, spent Saturday night with Stephen, a similarly wealthy, famous bachelor, eating cupcakes to honor the legalization of gay marriage in their state of residence.

Given that, up until the whole kissing thing, Jon hadn't either, he can't really blame them.

John Oliver asks when they can expect the announcement.

Jon replies, “We thought we'd just make out in Time Square.”

He's smiling and why shouldn't he? It's one of their longest, most comfortable jokes and if that smile is a little brighter, a little easier than usual, well, their elected officials actually did something right, for a change. Fucking miraculous. Who wouldn't smile?

Another problem is, even when they're being honest they're kidding. Occupational hazard. He goes over to the Report when he's finished Monday and Stephen greets him with an enthusiastic hug and a loud kiss on the cheek that sets Jon giggling. A dozen people are witness to it and their reactions range from smiles to smiles accompanied by rolling eyes.

Same on Tuesday, when Stephen appears in Jon's office and spends half an hour sitting on his desk, about three inches from his left elbow, getting in the way and invading his space while people go in and out and Jon tries to go about the business of producing his show.

“Speaking of which,” he says and looks up at Stephen with one eyebrow raised. Stephen takes it as a challenge.

“Your show?” the Other Guy asks. “I've might have caught it once or twice. Not a bad effort, Jon. Of course, you stand to take some cues from the guy who comes on after you.”

“I'll keep it in mind.”

Sam is on her way out of the office as she says, “Don't you have your own show to do?”

“They kicked me out,” the real Stephen replies. He sounds rather proud of it. “For being unhelpful. I'm not allowed back in the building for another – ” he checks his watch “ – forty-three minutes.”

“So you decided to be unhelpful here instead?” Jon asks.

“Spreading the love,” he says. “Didn't you miss me?”

“I saw you four hours ago.”

“What's your point?”

Sam's not dumb; she just doesn't see anything weird about Jon and Stephen seeing each other at seven AM on a Tuesday. Maybe she really already thought they were fucking.

After she leaves, Stephen goes to the door, looks out, and yells, “I am now going to have my wicked way with your boss. Try to live without him for the next fifteen minutes.”

He locks the door and they actually do make out for about ten minutes before realizing fifteen will be pushing it if they don't want to end up having sex on Jon's desk. (They don't. No, really, they don't. Really.) They get distracted talking about the idea Stephen was being unhelpful about and when Jason Jones starts banging on the door it's been closed for half an hour. No one sees anything out of the ordinary about that, either.

Thursday evening everyone's going out for drinks after taping and when they ask if Jon's coming he says, “Uh, I'm not – Lemme call Stephen, first.”

It's the first weird look they've gotten. And it's not weird so much as indulgent. Jon feels himself blushing as he fumbles for his phone.

“What?” he says. “We might be doing something.”

He's assuming they're going to one of their apartments to have amazing sex and curse at Fox News.

“Oh, really?” Sam says. “And just what is it you _might_ be doing with young Mr. Colbert?”

“Cursing at Fox,” Jon replies, phone to his ear, “and having amazing sex.”

It is, of course, at that moment Stephen picks up.

“Oh, yes please,” he says. “Your place or mine?”

“Your bed is bigger,” Jon replies, dodging Sam's grab for the phone, “but I've got a better mattress.”

“A dilemma,” Stephen says. “Try both?”

“I guess we have to.”

“The dread weight of necessity,” he says, all theatrical mourning. “What's up?”

Jon explains.

“So I thought I'd call and check,” he concludes, and half-turns because Sam is still watching with intense interest. He's pretty sure she's just trying to creep him out. It's working.

“We didn't have specific plans,” Stephen says. “Aside from that amazing sex you mentioned. And maybe yelling at the news.”

Jon hides his smile, probably lovestruck with exponents attached, behind his hand.

“Yeah, but still. I figured – ” He shrugs which Stephen won't need to see. There's a sense of attachment, like they're together even with all this space in between them. And Jon feels a little weird – anxious, almost, about the evening ahead.

Separation anxiety, he realizes. They've been together less than a week and he's having separation anxiety. Jesus _fuck_. He kind of feels like burying his face in his hands, possibly laughing himself sick, but he's getting actual weird looks now and doesn't want to make it worse.

“You want to come?” he asks. Maybe he should have started with that.

Stephen says, “Nah, I'm heading home. Late night, you know?”

Jon does know. He was there. He hasn't had this much sex since he was in his twenties and is kind of concerned they're both going to drop dead as soon as their bodies realize how long ago that was. Maybe a night apart will do them good. So why does it sound like the worst idea he's ever had?

“Why don't you come over?” Stephen asks, voice a little softer. “After you're done. I've got half your wardrobe over here.”

“That's, what, three things?” Jon replies, as his heart goes tight with – joy? Relief? He adds, “It'll probably be late. Will you be up?”

“If I'm not,” Stephen says, “I think I can trust you to molest me in my sleep.”

“You mean not molest you, right?”

“What do you think?”

Jon bites back a giggle.

“I'll consider it,” he says. “Later, Stephen.”

“Bye, baby.”

There's only moderate teasing and John and Sam soon shake off their speculative looks. As they head out, Jason tells him he's got it backwards.

“You only start hitting the bars to get away from them _after_ you get married. Do it before and the honeymoon period's over like _that_.”

Jon's not really worried about Stephen putting out and he says as much.

“Of course not.” Sam pushes in between them, taking an elbow from each. To Jason she says, “All he's gotta do is bend over.” She lets go for as long as it takes to smack Jon's ass and catches his arm, again, before he can flee. The focus of conversation shifts to Jason's resignation to his wife's sexual advances on other men (and women) and that's the end of it until, a little past midnight, Jon gets up from their over-crowded corner table and says, “All right, that's it. I'll see you assholes Monday.”

“What's the rush?” Sam asks.

“Oh, is there something special going on?” John adds. “Hot date? At this hour? I'm surprised at you, Jon.”

He shrugs. “Told Stephen I'd stop over,” he says and is glad the beer he's had is enough to have him pre-flushed.

“Really?” Wyatt missed the phone call. “And what's he plan on doing to you, staggering around in an alcoholic haze?”

“Take advantage of me,” Jon replies. “Or, if he's already asleep, I'm supposed to take advantage of him. It's a mutual thing.”

“Is it really taking advantage,” John asks the air, “if it's prearranged?”

This philosophical quandry is enough to distract the others and Jon slips away without much more than some half-formed innuendo floating in his wake.

The kitchen light's been left on for him but the bedroom is dark, when Jon makes it to Stephen's place. It's strangely intimate, letting himself into the half-light of the entryway and locking up behind himself, as if it were his space to occupy, his threshold to tend. He hangs up his bag and tugs off his shoes then moves through the silent apartment; sees his sweater draped on a chair and a stack of books on the end table – two of them are his.

The tiled floor of the bathroom is cold underfoot when Jon pulls his socks off and tosses them, with the pants he's been wearing since Monday, into the hamper by the shower. He cleans up a little, standing at the sink in his t-shirt and boxers, and meets his own eyes in the mirror.

Getting old. Getting really fucking old, he thinks but doesn't really mind. It's hard to mind anything, as he shuts off the bathroom light and goes to join his boyfriend (boyfriend, it really is a stupid word) in bed.

It feels natural to be doing this and Jon doesn't over think his instinct to settle in close and hug him carefully from behind. Stephen rouses with a sigh, just enough to snuggle back against him. He fumbles a hand down to draw Jon's to his lips.

“Hey,” he mumbles into his knuckles and presses their joined hands to his chest.

Jon kisses behind his ear and replies, “Hey.”

“How was it?”

Jon smiles.

“We could raise ten kids,” he says, “then retire to Florida together. And they'd still think it was a joke.”

“All of them?”

“Got some looks. Lasted until they realized they were taking the gay joke seriously.”

“Occupational hazard.” Stephen yawns.

“Uh-huh.” Jon tightens his hold for a moment then relaxes. “Night, babe.”

“G'night.”

Stephen falls asleep again in seconds. Jon has time to think about maybe investing in some real estate, say Cape Canaveral, before he does, too.

 

On Friday, Jon wakes because he's being kissed. It's wet and sloppy and there's morning breath and his head kind of hurts but he's waking up with Stephen kissing him and that will never not be fantastic. Full awareness comes in a joy explosion and he makes some sound, indistinct and excited, and throws his arms around him before sinking back, again, into soft sheets and pure relaxation.

Stephen smiles down at him, disheveled, half-awake, body sleep-warm and his glasses nowhere in sight.

“Mm,” he says.

Jon scrounges up the coordination to run both hands through his hair a couple of times.

“Hey,” he says and pulls Stephen down for another clumsy kiss. “Morning.”

“Mm,” Stephen says again and drops his weight onto Jon, pushing him deeper into the mattress, which is perfectly okay with Jon. Couldn't be better. “Got a present,” he murmurs and begins to press open-mouthed kisses to Jon's neck.

“Uh – ” It takes Jon a moment or two to focus enough to reply. Talking to Stephen isn't a problem in itself – talking to Stephen is good. Jon is a fan of talking to Stephen, of listening to Stephen talk; he even gave Stephen his own TV show on the premise listening to him talk was an enjoyable thing to do. But just now he's a little more interested in _touching_ Stephen, in feeling Stephen touch him. One hand is feeling around Jon's chest, bypassing the more obvious targets in favor of raking through the hair he finds there, back and forth, catching and tugging, his mouth sloppy and enthusiastic along Jon's neck and jaw. Stephen's hair feels a little oily but Jon's not exactly sterile himself, right now, and it still slides soft between his fingers and the smooth skin of his shoulders and nape are more than anyone can be expected to resist.

“Mm,” Jon says and adds, “Did you?” though he's no longer entirely sure what he's talking about.

Stephen's sucking on the skin at the crook of his neck and he releases with a slurping sound that makes Jon laugh.

“Uh-huh.” Stephen licks the spot. “Came last night,” he continues and Jon remembers he said something about a present. “While I was sleeping.”

He begins to rain quick kisses over Jon's chest and shoulders and Jon, struck with belated understanding, laughs.

“Hey,” he says, and squirms when Stephen scrapes his teeth over a nipple. Stephen lifts his head and beams at him.

“Hi,” he says.

Jon laughs again, more softly, and tugs Stephen in.

“Hey,” he repeats as their mouths brush. “You like it?”

“Hm.” Stephen settles into the kiss, deepening and lengthening it by warm, sleepy degrees, and several minutes are lost in each others' mouths. It doesn't so much break as recede; they're left with their foreheads close pressed, noses brushing, and they breath together. “Yeah,” Stephen murmurs at length. “I do.”

Jon huffs something positive and rubs his palm across the back of Stephen's neck before catching it in the crook of his elbow, locking him into another kiss. He feels, at last, Stephen's hand moving down; he's been waiting for it. Over his chest and on down, pressing too hard for a slide and grope sounds so crass. (There must be a word for it but he's got Stephen's tongue halfway down his throat and contemplating vocabulary isn't high on his list of priorities.)

Stephen's hand shifts to his side, rubbing warm and familiar (Stephen's hands are familiar, now, against his bare skin, and the thought sends static sparks shooting out from Jon's heart) over the minor curve of his waist, his hip, back to his favorite part of Jon's body for a tender squeeze of greeting. 

“Mm.” Jon sighs against his mouth then gasps as Stephen's moves away from his ass and takes hold of his cock.

“And hey,” he says, over the sudden pounding of blood in Jon's veins. “I think it likes me, too.”

Jon bursts into breathless giggles, again, squirming in his grip as his own hands make circles in Stephen's back and shoulders.

“Uh-huh,” he says and adds, “Hey,” as he pulls Stephen into another deep kiss.

“Mm.”

Stephen draws back with a long parting suck to Jon's lower lip then smiles down at him. Jon looks back, looks at his big brown eyes and the strong line of his jaw; at the fine arc of cheekbone and the faint color staining it. He sometimes wonders how the hell he even managed to meet Stephen, seeing as he's obviously done this before, meaning he's had sex with other people, meaning other people have seen him like this and somehow not given into the impulse to chain him to their beds forever. Jon would do it himself if it weren't for the whole television thing they've got going. Stephen's pretty hot on screen and it would be a shame not to see him there anymore. Plus he's kind of famous, now, so somebody would probably notice if he went missing.

_Oh, well._

It's a nice idea.

“What're you smiling at?” Stephen asks, and bites Jon's chin.

Jon squirms underneath him and replies, “How would you feel – about an early retirement?”

Stephen snorts and leans in again. “Depends,” he says and what he does next isn't kissing, exactly – more licking, all around and against Jon's mouth, biting when his lips part to breath, and Jon's not sure how he's managing to get the words out, too. “What kind of – retirement package – are we – talking?”

Jon giggles, again, and trails his hands down to wrap around Stephen's ass. Very nice – warm and firm, just enough give, like it was custom made for him. Stephen makes a soft, pleased sound and relaxes further against him. His mouth moves away to Jon's throat so he can speak, again.

“How about – ” He pauses as Stephen bites his throat and tries to decide if he wants to have visible bruises. Still not sure. “How about,” he tries again, “I – provide for you. And you – stay – in my bed – forever?”

Stephen stops to laugh into his shoulder. Jon smiles and uses his grip on Stephen's ass to urge him up further onto him. Stephen settles between his legs most willingly, his belly pressing down on Jon's cock. It's nice – warm pressure encouraging his erection, and when he begins to rub up against him, Stephen grunts and sits up on his elbows, readjusting until their cocks touch.

“Mm.” Jon pulls him down tight.

Stephen echoes his sigh then asks, his voice rough and airy, “Are you – suggesting – ” Jon thrusts up and he cuts off with a moan. “Suggesting – that I – that I abandon – my Nation – to serve – to serve as your sex slave?”

Jon thrusts again and Stephen gasps, his head dropping, Jon brushes his temple with his lips.

“Sex slave,” he says. “Concubine. I'd – be yours.”

Stephen buries his hands in Jon's hair and kisses him hard. The thrusting has lost definition, turned to a constant, uneven grinding as they work against each other, pushing higher. Stephen breaks off the kiss with a gasp.

“So,” he says. “So you're – uh – So you're thinking – a mutual thing?” Jon nips at his jaw, too breathless to laugh. “Mutual – sex slavery?”

Jon's having trouble putting words together, too.

“Uh – yeah – uh – ” His next breath in becomes a gasp. “That's – uh – That's the – idea.”

Stephen's shaking, now, and his arms give out so Jon finds himself covered, weighed down, and he turns his face into Stephen's neck and breathes deep. He tightens his grip on the soft mounds of Stephen's gorgeous ass and hooks his feet around the back of his legs; the angle of pressure on their cocks changes and Jon's moan is much softer than Stephen's gasp.

Stephen heaves another breath and forces out, “S – Sounds good – to – me – ”

Jon moans into his shoulder and releases his ass to wind his arms tight around his back, feel the quiver of muscles under sweat-warm skin.

“Okay,” he breathes. “Deal.”

And then they don't speak anymore, pressing and squirming, tight up against each other, orgasms building and rising with each throb of their heavy heartbeats, air moving harsh against each other's ears. When they come, it's within a breath of one another, so close neither can tell which climax is whose, and, within minutes, they're asleep again.

 

Saturday they go on a date. It's their first and it comes about when Stephen observes that there's no food in his apartment then says, “You wanna get something delivered or – ?”

He cuts off there and his tone is a little uncertain. Jon looks over at him, standing by the open freezer with his feet bare and his t-shirt stretched and slipping at the neck, and he feels his heart flip.

“Or,” he says, “we could go out.”

Stephen lets out a silent breath and the corner of his mouth twitches upward.

“We could,” he agrees and glances over. He looks pleased. “You want to?”

Jon shrugs. “Yeah,” he says. “I mean, we haven't left your apartment in two days. It'll be nice.”

“Okay.” Stephen's smiling as he closes the freezer, visibly fighting to keep from getting too excited. Jon moves over to him and wraps an arm around his waist.

“Hey.” He kisses the back of his shoulder. “I'll take you out,” he says. His thought from Thursday night comes back to him. “That's what boyfriends do, right?” He feels an answering rumble of laughter and smiles. “If you feel too emasculated,” he continues, “you can take me next week.”

Sometimes – not often, but sometimes – people come, as if by accident, across exactly the right words to say in exactly the right moment. It's not that other words would be wrong, exactly – it's just something about these particular ones in this particular order. There's a magic in them, and it opens up the sky. Sometimes it's Churchill telling us we have nothing to fear; more often it's much smaller, much more ordinary. Jon's offer will never change the world but the smile Stephen gives him could light it up and his kiss, though brief, anchors Jon to it, turns thought into conviction that there's nowhere else he'll ever want to be.

“Yeah,” Stephen tells him. “That sounds good.” His smile turns amused, but gently. “So if you're taking me out,” he says, “does that mean I get flowers?”

Jon's smiling, still half-caught in the revelation of the moment.

“You really want flowers?” he asks. “Because I'll go find some fucking flowers. ”

“Don't overtax yourself,” Stephen says.

There's an edge of irony to his voice Jon doesn't quite like so he puts a hand to his nape, gives him a firm kiss and says, “Fuck it. If I'm taking you out, I'm taking you out. It's – what – four-thirty?”

“Almost.” Stephen looks back from the clock with bemused affection in his face.

“All right,” Jon says. “That's enough time.” He pulls Stephen around so they're standing face to face and puts his arms loose around his waist. “I've got to head back to my place and change. Pick you up back here at – seven?”

“Okay, wait.” Stephen's hands settle on Jon's arms. “You're taking me _out_ out? Serious date out?”

“Yeah,” Jon says. “You got a problem with that?”

“No.” Stephen nudges Jon's forehead with his own. “I'm just wondering how we got from 'shit, I'm out of frozen pizza' to Serious Date in under sixty seconds.”

“Talent,” Jon says. He'd be getting worried, now, wondering if he's misread the whole situation, if this isn't what Stephen wants, if that smile weren't still warming him up on the inside, and if Stephen's hands weren't on the move, creeping toward to his shoulders. Jon closes the the space between them, tightens his arms around him, and tilts his face up just as Stephen is shifting down into the next kiss.

“Nobody thinks we're serious,” Jon tells him, on the other side. “Nobody thinks I'm serious. But I am. I'm dead serious and I'm going to prove it to you.”

It's a hell of a declaration and there are a lot of ways Stephen could take it. Jon's not sure which he expects – flippancy is a possibility, though remote. Reaffirming his own affections, telling Jon he has nothing to prove – those seem most likely. But he doesn't do that, either; he doesn't say anything. He kisses Jon, again, slow and warm, and it's trust and affirmation and gratitude and when it ends Jon takes his jaw in the palm of one hand and says, “We doing this?”

The next smile could light up the solar system.

“We're doing this.”

 

Jon is actually in his apartment, halfway through a shower, before he realizes he hasn't been on a Serious Date in over five years and even before then there were precious few. He was never really a Serious Date kind of guy. More a get-drunk-and-maybe-fuck-if-we-don't-pass-out kind of guy, up until he turned into the kind of guy who worked twelve hour days and sometimes forgot sex involving more than one person could happen in real life, too. He's not worried about it, exactly, but it reminds him he's never really been a relationship kind of guy either. It just didn't really happen for him. Or, it did happen, but it was always kind of uncomfortable and nerve-wracking. The only one he can remember much about (aside from the discomfort and wracked nerves) was in college and that was only a relationship in that they fucked each other semi-regularly, and occasionally did things other than fuck.

(It was also a relationship in that, as they were staggering home from a party one night, his best friend smacked his arm and said, “Dude. Be my boyfriend.”

“What?” Jon said.

“Be my boyfriend. 'Cause – If you're my boyfriend. I can tell Jeremy to get the hell away from me.”

“Can't you – Why can't you do that now?”

“Because – that would be mean.”

Jon was sufficiently inebriated that this seemed like a perfectly reasonable argument. But there was something else worrying him.

“I can still, like, fuck other people, right?”

“Huh? Sure, of course. Oh, hey, if we're a couple we can have three ways and shit.”

The logical contradiction in using an open relationship to justify rejecting someone didn't occur to either of them until later.)

Okay, cards on the table, here. It's not that he's ashamed of it, exactly, but it's not something he really talks about and he never thought about it this way but maybe it's been fucking with how he sees himself or something and that's why he's never been good at this. Dating. Jon's the guy who fucked pretty much everybody on campus and almost never did the same person twice, excepting his sort-of relationship with his best friend and the (this part makes him cringe to remember it) drug dealer he routinely sucked off for a discount.

Jon's the guy who would do pretty much anything if you got him high first and it's a fucking miracle he never got any diseases because he went on like that for most of college and would have kept going like that if it weren't for his best friend, again, specifically the time midway through senior year when the two of them, through no fault of their own, narrowly escaped a frat house with their lives. They also happened to be mostly sober at the time and – once they were sure nothing was actually broken – they spent the rest of the miserable walk back to their shitty apartment talking about how maybe theirs' weren't the best possible life choices. He's not a liar, so he won't say he calmed down completely after that, but he was sure a hell of a lot more careful.

The one thing he is ashamed of isn't the sex or the drugs or even the dealer – that shit's more embarrassing than anything. What he's ashamed of is that night at the frat house, that it even got to that point, because now, for the rest of his life, no matter what else he has been and what else he might become, Jon will always be the guy who had to get punched in the face and see his best friend thrown down a flight of stairs before he realized he'd gone past the foibles of youth and straight into actionable stupidity.

And it's not like he's no longer that guy; that's the guy he sees when he looks in the mirror, plus a couple dozen years that haven't done anything but make him tired. That's the guy he tries to shoves into a box before every taping, every public appearance, fuck it, every conversation he's ever had because that guy's not funny, he's just pathetic.

And that's the asshole standing here now, older, probably even stupider than in college, and he's about to go try to Serious Date Stephen Colbert. Stephen, who was probably an idiot in college, too, but he's moved past the idiot, become more than the idiot, turned into an actual human being, worthy of love and respect and personal fulfillment and whatever else it is people are supposed to get out of dating. There should probably be some kind of regulation to keep shitstains like Jon from dating people like Stephen. Maybe a fine. But Jon's pretty glad there isn't. There are a lot of things in his life he maybe shouldn't have done but Stephen – everything about Stephen – isn't on the list. The fact they're on any list, except maybe the list of Things Jon Stewart Will Never Get To Do – that's the part he's having trouble with.

“This is so fucking weird,” he tells the shaving mirror. It seems to agree.

The surreality of the situation has mercifully receded by the time he's dried off and made it back into his bedroom, towel around his waist, closet doors open. The effort to not panic over his unsuitability for interpersonal relations in general, and romantic involvement with people way, way out of his league in particular, serves to distract him from panicking over what to wear so he's already dressed and sitting on the end of his bed, putting on his shoes, when he realizes he's supposed to be taking Stephen somewhere. So he should probably think of somewhere to go.

Okay, somewhere. Somewhere nice. For dinner. Where do you take dates for nice dinners?

His first thought is Italian but the only nice Italian places he knows, pizzerias aside, are the ones he's been to in his capacity as a Show Business Person and are liable to be crowded, possibly with other Show Business People, and that's really not what Jon wants tonight – or any other night. And Stephen is probably expecting a pizzeria and Jon's making an effort here so he must be able to think of something else. This is his city.

Okay, forget food types for a minute. Think atmosphere. Think privacy. Think, if not privacy, at least discretion. Think little-known, or at least less-known, not frequented by people anybody's ever heard of. Think –

_Oh._

Jon looks at the mirror across the room and blinks.

_Of course._

 

“You've really never been here?” Jon says in an undertone as he guides Stephen in ahead of him, one hand low on his back.

“Never even heard of it,” Stephen confirms.

“I – find that surprising.” He follows Stephen's gaze around the restaurant interior – tasteful hardwood and small stained glass chandeliers; incongruously bright seat covers and wall hangings inside the booths. Lots of leopard print which is, Jon thinks, what brings out Stephen's soft laugh. They can both appreciate camp, especially well-done camp, and this is one of the three times and places in the history of the world leopard print has been done well. “Can't imagine why.”

If the hostess recognizes them she does a good job of hiding it; her smile is bright, professional, and she doesn't have to check the reservation book before leading them to a small booth near the back. She murmurs something off the restaurant hostess script and departs as they slip in. Jon just has time to appreciate the way the light flashes off Stephen's brown eyes before ice water is being poured and someone else is offering a wine list. Those eyes turn to Jon, a question. He shrugs and holds up his hands, declaiming responsibility. Stephen smiles and takes the list, handing it back after a moment with a word of selection. Sommelier and server vanish off into the deeper shadow of the restaurant floor and, left alone in the booth, high-walled and dimly-lit, they meet each others' eyes and smile.

“You like it?” Jon asks.

Stephen's smile widens and he's not looking anywhere but Jon's face when he says, “Amazing.”

The entire menu consists of four appetizers and five entrees, plus a daily special for each. It takes real confidence to do that which is, Jon assures him, entirely merited.

“Come here a lot?” Stephen asks, amused.

“A few times. Last was a year or two ago. I always forget it exists.”

“Sure it hasn't gone down hill?”

He's teasing. Jon says, “The duckling is fucking delicious.”

There's no reply. Jon glances up from his menu to find Stephen looking at him, again, leaning his cheek on his hand with a faint smile at his lips. He's radiating affection, so intense and unambiguous Jon is struck by powerful, competing urges: propose marriage here and now then dedicate the rest of his life to failing to ever get used to being looked at like this; or flee to the Siberian heartland to live e'ermore in obscurity because there's no way he'll ever be able to be anything like what Stephen deserves. He's still deciding when Stephen's free hand reaches out and catches one of his. Eyes never leaving Jon's, he draws it in and presses a kiss to his knuckles. Jon squeezes in return and says, “Stephen?”

Stephen shakes his head.

“Thank you,” he says.

“I don't – ”

“Jon? Thank you.”

There's a pause. If Jon is ever going to get lost in somebody's eyes, he could only do worse than Stephen's.

“You're welcome,” he says, hardly aware of it. “Entirely. Completely. Welcome.”

Stephen's smile, that smile, flickers wider and his grip goes tight for an instant before he releases Jon's hand.

“I know,” he says. “That's why.”

 

It's closing in on nine by the time they leave, happy and relaxed, walking close enough to touch until Jon damns everything and reaches out to catch Stephen's arm and hook it through his own. Stephen's answer is half-laugh and half-sigh, a sound of purest contentment.

Jon's apartment is marginally closer and that, by unspoken accord, is where they're going. It's a nice night but the streets in this neighborhood are fairly quiet and silence falls between them as they walk. After two blocks Stephen stops suddenly at the corner, a smile faint at his lips. He catches Jon's sleeve and draws him out of the center of the sidewalk, then slides his grip down to lace their fingers together. His eyes are soft as his other hand comes to rest against Jon's cheek – there's no rush, no pressure, and plenty of time to refuse, if that's what Jon wants.

It's not; of course it's not. He leans into his touch and reaches out to brush gentle fingertips up the side of Stephen's neck as he moves closer. The kiss is slow and soft and Jon aches to make it longer, deeper than location allows. When it's done they linger, breathing together for long seconds before moving back to meet each others' eyes.

Stephen smiles.

“So,” he says. “Dating.”

“I think it works for us,” Jon replies.

“My thoughts exactly.” He leans in a little closer, one hand creeping along the arch of Jon's shoulder. “Are you paying for the cab back, too?”

“That's the plan. Why?”

“Because.” His lips brush Jon's temple. “If you keep emasculating me, I'm going to have to fuck you through the box spring when we get back.”

Stephen's not allowed to open a single door for himself until morning.


	5. Chapter 5

This is a phone call Jon has with a producer two weeks and twenty-two hours after his sexual tension with Stephen finds resolution:

“Hello, yes, Jon speaking.”

“Jon, hey. Bad time?”

“No, it's cool. What's happening?”

“It just wanted to let you know – we got word back from both lawyers on Wyatt's piece. Nothing actionable.”

“Everything's actionable.”

“Nothing we need to worry about.”

“Now you're trying to make me panic. Work, shut up.”

“What?”

“Sorry, not you. I've got Stephen with me.”

“Hi!”

“Hi, Stephen.”

“She says hi. So we're good on Wyatt? No likely legal action?”

“No more likely than usual.”

“Amen to that. I'd appreciate it.”

“Sorry?”

“Stephen asked if I'd be a while or if he can go ahead and get naked.”

“You're appreciating his nakedness, now? Are you sure you want to encourage him?”

“I can't very well have hot, gay sex with him if he's still got his clothes on. We done? I'm getting some serious semaphore here.”

“Yeah, that's it. You know, if you guys keep saying shit like that, we're going to start thinking you're serious.”

“You do that.”

 

As he undoes Stephen's belt, Jon says, “We're cheating, aren't we?”

Stephen, straddling his torso, tosses his t-shirt aside and looks down. He runs a distracted hand through Jon's hair.

“You mean aren't we unfairly exploiting public perception that we're never to be taken seriously in order to avoid coming out while assuaging our guilt over not coming out by never technically lying and thus being able to tell ourselves we aren't _really_ being dishonest?”

Jon gets his pants open and smiles at the hopeful erection emerging to meet him.

“Yeah,” he says and wraps a hand around it. “That.”

“Mm.” Stephen rocks forward into his fist. “Definitely cheating.”

“Thought so.” Jon holds his hand still and touches the other to Stephen's hip, urging gentle thrusts. Stephen is still holding onto his hair and it feels kind of nice. “Should we maybe do something about that?” he asks and leans in to lick the tip of his cock.

Stephen's voice is a little low and a little short of breath when he replies, “About – cheating?”

Jon squeezes his hip and he stills with a soft moan.

“Yeah,” Jon says again, then wraps his lips around the head and sucks.

“Oh, god – ”

Stephen's hand tightens in his hair. His scalp tingles and it goes all the way through him. After a few long seconds, Jon releases him and says, “Well?”

“What?” Stephen looks down at him, glass-eyed and flushed. “Well – What?”

“Should we do something,” Jon says again, “about the cheating?”

“Uh.”

Stephen stares. Jon looks back, innocently desirous of his opinion.

“Later?” Stephen suggests.

Jon considers this, adjusting his grip on Stephen's hips. Stephen shifts forward on his knees.

“Later works for me,” Jon says and swallows him down.

 

Given context, it's a little weird that the whole marriage thing doesn't occur to Jon until Thursday, the twenty-first – three days before the first legally recognized same sex weddings will occur in New York. It comes up around the writer's table and easy as that he's gone – drifting through the rest of the meeting, aware of the decision to send out Sam and Jason but otherwise lost in the echo chamber his mind has become.

_Wedding._

_Marriage._

_Engagement._

_Love._

Words that never had much meaning to him, not in conjunction, except maybe in the social justice sense. Words he never really applied to himself. But now they're there, floating in his head alongside rings and bow ties and roses – a strangely traditional set of associations and, standing at their center, Stephen.

Of course Stephen.

Sam elbows him and John asks what their great leader has to think about that's so much more important than they are. Jon replies, “Just wedding plans, is all. Don't suppose any of you know Stephen's ring size?”

They laugh.

Jon can't really blame them.

 

Jon leaves Stephen a voice mail after taping. It says something like, 'I'm heading out, see you at your place,' per previous arrangement. He's in his office when he makes the call, staring down at his desk, distracted by the daily effort to figure out what vitally important thing he's forgetting this time. It's not until he's back in his own apartment, trying to work out how the hell all his underwear made it to Stephen's place when all his socks managed to stay here, that he realizes he ended the message with, “Love you, babe.”

He doesn't think – no, they never have used that word before. Not seriously. Not like this. A solid minute and a half is spent staring into the depths of his sock drawer, waiting for the inevitable freak out.

It doesn't happen.

_Okay, then._

He drops what little he needs into his bag and heads out.

 

Stephen hasn't made it home yet, so Jon lets himself in and, for lack of anything better to do, he makes dinner – pasta out of a box and canned sauce, because he can't fuck that up too bad if he gets distracted. There's a tin of rolls in the freezer so he preheats the oven and lays them prominently on the counter beside the stove so he won't forget.

_Three days._

It's not like it's a deadline but it's something to think about.

 

It's another half hour before Jon hears a key in the lock. He steps across to the dimly-lit entryway and ignores the way his heart picks up an extra beat as the door swings open.

Stephen.

Jon saw him maybe twelve hours ago, has talked to him since, has had no reason to worry or despair, hasn't worried or despaired but – but all the same, there's something inside that eases.

Stephen's brown eyes are open behind his glasses, meeting Jon's across ten feet of space, his dark hair, all the Other Guy's gel washed away, falling forward over his eyebrows. He looks good – a little tired, maybe - not soft but touchable, and the way the light from the kitchen hits his jaw makes Jon think he should put his hand there, that he ought to make sure that strong arch of bone fits his palm as well as it looks, as well as (a flutter through the blood in his veins) he knows it does.

Jon can do that, now.

The door closes behind him and Stephen puts down his bag in time to hold his hands out, open, palms up, a greeting or an invitation. Jon steps between them and lets out a breath as they curve around his lower back. Stephen leans into the palm Jon presses to his face, the fit as perfect now as it's always been.

“Hey,” Jon says.

“Hi.”

Their lips brush, first softly, parting for weakened breath, then again, slipping further by slow degrees as their eyes close and they lean, weight against weight, balanced.

When the kiss ends they stay where they are, bodies close, and Jon's arms slip around Stephen's neck, cheek nuzzling into his shoulder. He drifts for a short while, content, then feels his lips press into his hair.

“Love you, too,” Stephen says.

The grin that creeps onto Jon's face is powerful, unavoidable, and the joy unfurling in his chest makes him ache. A giggle bubbles up out of him, and Stephen's laughing, too, when Jon pulls him down for another kiss.

 

They eat at the table like civilized people, for once. Stephen expresses his admiration for Jon's water-boiling skills and Jon praises Stephen's talent for arriving in time to take advantage of the hard work other people did to put food on the table. He times this to the moment he puts Stephen's plate down in front of him and then, at the touch of a hand to his wrist, he leans in to accept a kiss that goes on a little for a thank you.

Stephen waits until Jon returns with his own plate to say, “You really do sound just like your mother.”

Jon drops into his chair and shudders.

“You could have just said you weren't in the mood,” he says. “Killing off my boner for the next six months seems a little harsh.”

Stephen snorts.

“If you're challenging me to revive it,” he says, “let me finish my dinner first. Can't perform erotic necromancy on an empty stomach.”

They're the same words they might have said twenty-four, twelve, six hours ago, but there's a new edge of tenderness to them, open and profound, and Jon can't help but remember their first date, the French restaurant with the leopard print table cloth, and how Stephen smiled at him then.

That was less than three weeks ago.

Jon is struck with the same split urges now as then: stay with Stephen forever or run like hell. He doesn't think running is an option, anymore. Maybe it never was. He can't remember why he ever thought this might be scary.

Jon feels himself smiling, so wide it hurts his cheeks and strains his lips. He averts his eyes to his plate and, like Stephen did three weeks ago, reaches out and to catch his hand. It happens to be the left, now held in Jon's right, and Jon never noticed how naked its ring finger looks. He thinks he could maybe do something to clothe it. Provided Stephen agrees.

He glances up through his eyelashes and catches the edge of the soft, sunny smile from back at the restaurant, the one from that first Sunday morning; the one he's been seeing a lot of the past few weeks and now realizes he's been seeing for years, more and more, for almost as long as they've known each other. He'd seen it, noticed it, admired it, but never recognized it for what it was. Stephen's wearing it natural as his own skin, and, if Jon can read it right now, agreeing won't be a problem at all.

 

Jon loads the dishes into the sink, after dinner, then turns to find Stephen inches away. His eyes are molten dark, luminous, his smile sweet, and Jon moves closer, no thought in him but to taste it.

They go to bed, undressing each other along the way, and it takes a while because every inch of skin uncovered merits consideration by roaming hands and even if they felt like trying they wouldn't be able to stop kissing.

Stephen lies back and pulls Jon along with him, only releasing his hands to trail his own fingers up along his arms and over his shoulders, where his palms curve to fit then slide down. They settle on Jon's lower back, their touch possessive, as Jon pushes Stephen back, further into the pillows. Stephen's sheets are white as starlight, and he's beautiful back against them – dark chocolate hair, the warm tones of his skin.

Jon wraps a hand around the side of Stephen's neck, his thumb brushing his cheek as he leans in and presses his mouth to the inviting shadow at the back of his jaw. The day's stubble is rough against his face and, when Stephen laughs, Jon smiles into it.

“Okay?” he says.

“Yeah.”

Jon settles closer against him, sliding his lips around the corner of his jaw and up to his cheekbone, gently tasting skin along the way. Stephen's sigh turns into a moan and Jon sits back to slip off his glasses. He has to lean to get them to the side table and when he looks back Stephen's eyes are on him. Jon lets his own slip closed as he meets Stephen's mouth, again.

Stephen's hands have begun to massage his lower back, sending bolts of sensation through every inch of Jon's body. He's shivering when they part, breathing hard, and winds a hand into Stephen's hair. Stephen sighs and goes with it when Jon uses the hold to pull his good ear to his own mouth. He says, “Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.”

Stephen moans again and his arms go tight around Jon's waist, pulling their bodies flush. He kisses behind Jon's ear and says, “Baby?”

“You love me?” Jon asks.

“God, yes.”

“Love you, too.”

Stephen makes a sound, three parts laughter, one part something else.

“That's – so cool,” he says.

Jon giggles and presses his face into the crook of Stephen's neck.

“Yeah, it is,” he says. “Very cool.”

For a long moment Stephen just holds him and there's something about hugging, wrapping someone else's body up in your own, that strikes Jon, in that moment, as the highest declaration anyone could ever make. He sighs and feels Stephen press a kiss to his temple.

“You want me?” Stephen asks.

Jon smiles into his skin, skin he's focused on, right now, around him and beneath him – warm and soft, here hair-roughened, there damp with sweat – and Stephen smells so good, lush and salty and human. 

“Oh, yeah,” he says.

He can feel Stephen's cheek nestling in his hair, Stephen's breathe against his scalp. “How?”

Jon laughs, again, and presses closer. He turns, just a little, to find and feel Stephen's heartbeat under his lips.

“However,” he tells him. “You lead.”

Finger scratch up Jon's spine, not quite hard enough, and he shivers and arches into them. Stephen flattens his hand and rubs his palm down, firm pressure dispersing the tingle left by his nails, warming Jon through. His chest aches.

“Feels nice,” he says.

Stephen wraps one hand around the back of his neck and turns to kiss his forehead as his palm slides back down the center of Jon's back and over the swell of his ass.

“Mm.” It sounds like concurrence. Jon laughs.

For a short while they're still, Jon snuggled down in Stephen's arms, his weight pushing him deeper into the bedding. They breath each other in, reveling in the warm press of bodies, skin against skin, the soft scratch of hair. Stephen's hand stays curled around Jon's ass, tenderly claiming it as his own, until he heaves a sigh and curls his fingers in to trail down his cleft. He begins so lightly Jon has to squirm in protest which only sends another tremor of laughter through Stephen's chest.

But he stops the grazing touch and presses in, two fingers rubbing around his entrance. Jon's hips arch back against them as he moans against Stephen's neck. Stephen moves away from his hole and, at Jon's little grunt of protest, he squeezes his ass then slips around to take hold of his hip. He begins to shift their bodies, turning Jon off him, into the crook of his arm, and tilting up his face.

Jon meets his eyes, bright and soft, and feels himself beginning to smile just as Stephen's lips touch his. He sighs, opening in invitation and anticipation of Stephen's tongue, gently flickering out to him. His fingers slide into Stephen's hair as he relaxes into the kiss, time flowing soft and slow around them. Stephen's grip on his hip tenses then releases, his arms winding tight around Jon's back for a moment before turning to push him down.

Jon is buried, then, in heated sensation, in Stephen's body over him, holding him deep down in the blankets they've warmed between them. He's kissed, thoroughly and tenderly, and it feels like a proclamation. Stephen is giving him something, pushing it in through his mouth, his skin, and Jon accepts it, absorbs it, holds on and gives in.

“Baby,” Stephen tells him, between shallowing kisses, while his fingers skim up and down Jon's ribs and Jon's hands occupy themselves with his shoulders and hair.

“Yeah?”

Stephen is lifting off him, still kissing him as he pushes his weight up on his elbows.

“Baby,” Stephen says again, “do something for me?”

“Anything,” Jon tells him and doesn't quite have the breath to add 'that doesn't involve getting out of this bed'. Stephen makes a purr of approval and the hair on the back of Jon's hair stands on end.

“Mm. Thank you.” Stephen draws out another kiss, then another, then one final firm press of his wet lips before he manages to pull himself away enough for Jon to see his eyes. They're ruby-bright with dark hair falling in them and he's smiling like it's the whole glory of the world in his bed rather than Jon, panting and dazed, still grasping at his shoulders.

Stephen brushes a hand down the side of Jon's face and his head tilts as though contemplating another kiss before he laughs, pats Jon's cheek, and leans down to speak into his ear.

“I want you on your knees,” he says and sits up again.

After a startled moment, Jon shudders then follows suit, catching Stephen's hands in his as he rises. He kisses his knuckles, reverent, distracted, and asks, “Yeah?”

Stephen tugs his hands in to return the favor.

“Yeah,” he says. “And turn around.”

Stephen guides him up on his knees and then around, his hands never breaking contact with Jon's body, sliding and stroking along his arms and sides until he has him facing the end of the bed. It puts Stephen behind him and Jon shivers as fingers skitter up and down his back, palming his shoulders then down along the minor arch of his waist, and around to his stomach. Stephen presses up against him, hugging tight with his face pressed into his neck and his cock hard and insistent along the cleft of Jon's ass.

Jon reaches back to his hip, urging him on, and Stephen shivers. He thrusts against him once then stills with an effort Jon can feel. He takes a breath against his neck then kisses behind Jon's ear.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.” Stephen lips brush his cheek and he lets go, settling back with his hands lingering at Jon's hips. “Down,” he says. “Hands and knees.”

Jon cooperates, allowing Stephen to adjust his position with firm touches to his back and legs and ends as Stephen said, leaning in on his hands with his knees widespread. Stephen is sitting propped on the pillow behind him, legs stretched under Jon's hovering body. He just has time to feel exposed and a little cold before he's distracted by Stephen's hands wrapping around his ass. He laughs.

Stephen makes a soft sound of acknowledgment and says, “All mine.” Jon would object if he didn't sound so happy.

Stephen massages him thoroughly with both hands, out to his hips and up to his lower back, then down again, curving around the joints at the tops of his inner thighs. He scratches along the underswell of each cheek as he goes then pulls, making Jon shuffle back a little closer. His mouth, damp and a little swollen from the use he's already put it to, begins it's own exploration, brushing gentle kisses here and there over his ass as his hands squeeze Jon's thighs.

Stephen's taking his time, no rush, something like reverence in his touch, and Jon's arousal, almost an afterthought when they were making out, the kisses a means to their own end, is flaring through his whole body. He shivers at the first brush of tongue, flickering along his cleft, and knots his fists in the blankets.

Thus encouraged, Stephen begins worshiping in earnest, his open mouth pressing and sucking, never breaking contact as he moves over his skin, tongue swirling, teeth grazing, little moans of satisfaction vibrating down into Jon's flesh.

He traces along the cleft, not delving yet, and Jon is feel hot chills, body anxious, impatient, his entrance still tingling from that first brush of fingertips. His erection is heavy and throbbing, his breath harsh through mouth and nose.

“Stephen,” he says. “Stephen, please.”

Stephen's mouth lifts away but not far; Jon can feel each exhalation as Stephen says, “Thought I was in charge.”

Jon gives a little groan of frustration.

“More,” he says, and Stephen dips down, his lips brushing his skin.

“As you wish,” he replies, muffled, and his hands rise to hold Jon open, parting him as he slips his tongue in and licks a slow stripe up, passing hard over his opening and Jon moans loud. Stephen replies with a little purr into the indentation where his body begins to separate. He then licks back down, soft and squirming, close to Jon's testicles before moving up, again.

Stephen's tongue presses flat to his hole and Jon whimpers when he feels the muscles shift and contract to a point. It pushes into the center, not hard enough, then moves out to circle gently. Jon can hear himself panting, is almost aware of the soft keening falling out of him, and he'll never get used to this, not ever, they'll be in their nineties, on their deathbeds, and Stephen will still be able to destroy him with a word, one sound to remind him of this, of his ass and Stephen's tongue, soft, quick laps that turn into an insistent press, that twists and pushes down, not quite penetrating but opening, parting muscles that beg to parted, and Jon will beg, too, will beg as long and as loud as Stephen wants, just so long as he doesn't stop, doesn't ever _don't ever stop, god, Stephen, please –_

His mouth is gone and Jon tries to follow, pushing back into hands already tensed to hold him.

“Stephen – ”

A kiss, wet and hot, lands on the small of his back and Stephen says, “God, Jon, I've got to – I want to – ”

“Fuck me,” Jon tells him, through a tight, airless throat. “Now. Stephen, fuck me.”

Another kiss, clumsy against the swell of one cheek and Stephen is pushing him forward saying, “Fuck, Jon, shift, I need to – have to move – ”

Lacking the coordination for anything more intricate, Jon flops onto his back and lies propped on his elbows as Stephen fumbles to lube himself up. His cheeks are the color of roses and his hair is falling in eyes gone glassy black and the thought strikes Jon, over the desperate buzz of his nerves, that he made Stephen look like this – that he didn't even have to do anything, not really, that just being allowed to touch him like this, just being allowed to make Jon feel this good is all it takes to make Stephen so hard he winces when his own slick fingers make contact. Jon follows those fingers over the taut red skin of Stephen's erection then looks up again. Their eyes meet.

“Do you need – ?” Stephen gestures towards Jon's wide-spread legs. Jon considers punching him but that might take even longer.

“Fuck, no, get _over_ here.”

“Oh, thank god.”

Stephen scrambles over to him and leans in long enough to kiss the center of Jon's chest.

“Fuck, I love you,” he adds, then hooks his arms under Jon's legs and hauls him in. Jon's hips arch up with half-conscious hope and Stephen takes hold of them, fingers still slick on one hand, burning into Jon's over-sensitive skin. At the first touch of Stephen's cock to his entrance, Jon groans and lets his head drop back.

“Yes, god – ”

“Fuck, Jon – ”

He pushes in, groaning loud enough for Jon to hear over his own needy whimper.

“Stephen, please – ”

His cock is a hot, dense presence, and Jon opens up to him, feels himself loosening, accepting, easy and eager, and folding in around him. Jon is ravenous, in these moments, like he's been empty his entire life, waiting to be filled, and being able to take Stephen like this, without the long minutes of fingering and coaxing and concentrated relaxing, is one of the most amazing things he's ever felt. He'd kind of forgotten how good it could be, how natural, and maybe getting his ass fucked often enough to develop an instinct for it isn't what every mother wants for her child but it's what Jon wants for himself, what he can't quite believe he's gone this long without.

“Jon – ”

“More, please?”

Stephen groans, thrusts, the bed creaks, and he hits Jon deep and rough and so, so good.

“Yes – ”

“Like that – ?”

“Just like that, god – ”

A rumble comes from somewhere far down in Stephen's chest and the hair on Jon's arms prickles. Stephen eases back and out until air flows cool around where his cock enters Jon's body. It makes Jon shiver, makes him tense and flutter around his cock and his fingers catch in the covers as he gathers them into his fists. Stephen slams in again, harder, skin sealing tight to skin, and hair is falling in his eyes, bent over Jon's chest.

“Yes, fuck – ”

He starts to pick up speed and Jon urges him on with continuous, emphatically positive vocalizations. Stephen is restricting himself to grunts and monosyllables as he plunges in, filling corners of Jon that have been empty so long he'd forgotten them until a month ago. Jon can't remember why he stopped doing this – why it took legislative competence to start doing this with Stephen. He always knew it would be good, he always knew – 

Stephen's getting louder, closer, and Jon reaches for his own cock, aching for neglect. Just before his hand makes contact Stephen gasps out, “No!”

“What?”

He stops, hand shivering in midair, and groans as Stephen shoves into him again.

“Don't – ” He pauses, buried, but can't stay, can't maintain it, begins to pull back even as he's saying, “Want you – want you to – ”

Another hard push and Jon shudders, his dick burning with it now that he's paying attention.

“Stephen, what – ”

“Fuck me – ” He thrusts again and they both groan. “Want you to – ah – fuck me – after this.”

“Good – oh, fuck – good _god_ , Stephen – ”

“Please.”

It comes out as a gasp and Jon's already latched onto the quilt again.

“Oh – oh, god – ” Jon arches his back and forces out, “Okay, god, just – fuck, _hurry_ – ”

Stephen laughs, somewhere in his next heaving breath, then squeezes his eyes shut again and obeys, thrusting faster, harder, impossibly deeper, driving in and in and Jon's erection is aching, wet. He thinks he might come anyway, come just from this, from Stephen inside him, pounding up against his prostate, and he can hear himself, can hear Stephen, can _smell_ both of them in the air.

“Stephen, _please_ – ”

With a final deep, heavy groan, Stephen comes and Jon feels it, feels his cock shuddering deep within and he hears himself moan with it. Stephen pauses, dazed, still inside him, and Jon should be patient, should give him a moment, but he _hurts_ and he _wants_ and if he doesn't get some kind of satisfaction soon he might kill somebody.

“Dammit, Stephen!”

“Oh, fuck!”

Stephen pulls himself out, too fast, and they both groan a little as Jon pushes himself up on his elbows.

“Turn around,” he says. “Headboard. And – where's the fucking lube?”

Stephen doesn't even laugh – he just throws it at Jon and scrambles around, showing his pretty ass with his knees spread, hands tight on the headboard. Jon's prep is sloppy, rushed, two slick fingers at once, twisting in, and they make Stephen squeak even as he's pushing back against them.

“Okay?” Jon asks and the soft, clinging muscle around and against his hand is doing nothing for his composure.

“Yes, keep going, god – ”

More lube, three fingers. Stephen shudders and moans, this time, saying, “Fuck, yes – ”

“You ready?” Jon asks and he's not sure his heart will be able to take it if Stephen says 'no'.

He doesn't.

“Yes, fuck, yes,” he says. “Do it. Now, god.”

“Oh, thank _fuck_ – ”

He can't quite stand it, chokes on a groan as he swipes more lube onto himself and he hears Stephen give a breathy laugh.

“You okay, Jon?” he asks.

“Tease,” Jon snaps back. “You filthy fucking tease.”

He grabs him by the hips, by those beautiful hips that fit his hands just like he always knew they would, skin soft against his fingers and he moans as he presses close.

“How bad,” Stephen says, “does your dick hurt?”

Jon curses and reaches down to guide himself in.

“I thought – ”

“Oh, fuck, yes – ”

He buries himself in one move and gives a groan close to a scream as Stephen takes him in, deep, so tight around him.

“Oh – _god_ , Stephen – ”

He means to wait, means to give him time to adjust, but it's too good, too much, he's waited too damn long and before his brain can override the urgent pleading of his cock he's halfway withdrawn and in again, hard. Stephen makes a noise, loud, barely human, and Jon makes himself stop, just for a second, though every nerve in his body is shrieking to just _take_ him, goddammit, just _do_ it and the spasmic tightening of his ass around his cock is really not helping his self-control. Nor, it happens, are the frantic, rattling breaths Stephen is taking, his smooth, sweaty back heaving hot against Jon's chest, shoulderblades fluttering, distracting. Jon drags his hands up Stephen's sides to press over them, palms conforming to the little half-domes of bone.

“Stephen,” he says. “Stephen, baby – are you – are you okay?”

Stephen groans and his head, hung down between his arms bobs once. Jon shudders but – not enough – not – he has to make sure.

“Stephen, talk to me.”

A quiver goes through him and comes out as a giggle. He squirms and Jon wraps his arms around him, tight, bringing him closer, pushing his cock deeper and when Stephen moans it turns into, “Jon – Jon, okay, I'm okay, just – god, keep – keep going – ”

Jon presses a kiss to his neck.

“Sure?”

He giggles again and clenches tight around Jon's cock. Jon pushes into it, tighter up against him.

“Very sure,” Stephen says.

“Fucking _love_ you,” Jon tells him.

Stephen grabs one of his hands and drags it up, over his shoulder, pulling Jon flush against his back.

“Then _fuck_ me.”

 

Jon is aware, once reminded, of Stephen's second orgasm, coming hard on the heels of his own. He remembers the sound of it, deep and rising, almost startled, and is surprised and rather impressed with himself when he recalls his own hand closing over Stephen's.

At the end, they kind of fall over, off to one side, and it takes a few minutes for Jon to recover enough to shift back and disengage, prompting a little moan from Stephen.

Several more minutes pass before Stephen begins to stagger to his feet. Jon sits half up, questioning, and is pushed down again by a hand flat on his chest.

_Okay, then._

So he flops back and waits, blinking at the ceiling as sweat dries on his skin. He thinks maybe they just got married. Or that they should get married. One of the two.

Maybe he should ask.

Stephen returns shortly after with a washcloth. He pulls on Jon's arm until he grunts and turns onto his side then begins to wipe at Jon's cock. The fabric is rough and Jon is sensitive but when he squirms Stephen smacks his hip. So he gives in, again, and closes his eyes, waiting for Stephen to finish with him. He'd feel bad for making him do all the clean-up but figures it's fair – he cooked.

He drops onto his back again when Stephen moves away and smiles when he hears the faint, damp sound of wet cloth hitting carpet. Stephen's pitched the washcloth onto the floor, rather than bother getting up again.

And then Stephen is kissing him. He brushed his teeth – very considerate – and Jon sighs against his warm lips, around the gentle stroking of his tongue. His body curls around Jon's and, once the kiss breaks, his head comes to rest over the beating of Jon's heart. Jon reaches across himself to squeeze Stephen's shoulder but the muscular commitment is too much for him and he soon lets his hand fall back onto his own chest. Stephen closes his own over it, heavy and warm.

“Love you,” he says and shifts to kiss Jon's shoulder. Jon smiles.

“Love you, too.”

There's a pause before Stephen's voice, soft and full of joy, comes again.

“You didn't even know you'd said it, did you?”

Jon's smile swells into a grin.

_Fucking ridiculous._

It's not even that big a deal, not really, not anything they didn't already know, it's just –

“I knew,” he says and giggles. “I just – didn't notice.”

Stephen laughs.

“When did you notice?” he asks.

“Maybe half an hour? Not until I got home. How about you?”

“I was in the middle of the hallway. Stopped dead. Paul crashed into me.”

Jon giggles and nudges him off so he can turn on his side. Stephen grabs one of the larger pillows and they lie face to face, sharing it.

“What did Paul think of that?”

“He thought you were dying.”

A laugh ripples through Jon but doesn't emerge. He reaches out and runs curled fingers up the side of Stephen's face.

“Why did he think that?”

The corners of Stephen's swollen lips twitch up.

“Because I said, 'Jon called, give me a second,' then froze?”

Jon traces his mouth with a fingertip.

“Uh-huh. And imminent death is the logical conclusion?”

“Mm.” Jon skims along his jaw. “If you're Paul. I guess.” His eyelids slip closed and Jon brushes along their lashes.

“And what did you say?”

Stephen smiles again and Jon shifts in to lick his lower lip. He giggles and the sound itself is enough to hug; pushed in with still-red cheeks and the glorious disarray of his dark hair, it would take a much worse man than Jon to fail to press up to him, slinging an arm into the neat dip of his waist.

“Mm.”

He kisses him, slow and thorough, and Stephen sighs and surrenders himself to exploration, as Jon did before. When his own breath is gone, and Stephen's long since, Jon releases him and settles just far enough off to see his unfocused eyes, naked and deep, now fluttering open.

“And what did you say?” Jon asks.

Slowly, Stephen blinks.

“Hm? Say to who?”

Jon draws lines up his body and pushes his hair back, sweat-stiff at his temple.

“To Paul. When he thought I was dead.”

“Ah.” Stephen tilts in his chin, nuzzling their noses. “I said – you weren't dead.” A slow, soft kiss. “You'd just – confessed your undying love for me.”

His lips brush against Jon's as he says this and Jon has to tilt away to laugh. The move puts their foreheads together and there they stay. The backs of Jon's fingers press to Stephen's cheek and slowly stroke.

“Well, I did,” he says.

“Uh-huh.”

He sounds happy. Jon laughs again.

“What did Paul say to that?” He's talking for the sake of talking, really, of hearing Stephen's voice, rough and warm.

“That you have no sense of romance,” Stephen says. “Because – a voicemail, really?”

Jon giggles.

“Sorry.”

Stephen's hand closes on his waist.

“I'll forgive you,” he says, “if you promise to keep fucking me like that.”

“I'll make an effort.”

Jon's not sure who kisses who. It doesn't really matter.

“He also asked if it was a surprise,” Stephen adds.

Jon hesitates and, after a moment, drifts his hand down to the back of Stephen's neck.

“Was it?” he asks.

“Was it what?”

“A surprise?”

Stephen snorts.

“Of course not.” His eyes open a crack and he regards Jon through it. “Was it for you?”

“Fuck no. I was – I think I was taking it as given.”

Stephen smiles, satisfied, and closes his eyes again as Jon begins to scratch his nape. “Me, too. Nice to say it, sometimes, though.”

“Uh-huh. And nice to hear.”

“Yeah.”

They're quiet for a moment, Jon content to watch Stephen breath as he continues his lazy petting, gentle nails along his spine. When Jon speaks again, it's lower, volume and pitch.

“He thinks you're kidding.”

Another brief pause before Stephen sighs. With a subtle shift, he settles still closer and drapes an arm around Jon's waist.

“Doesn't everyone?” he asks the corner of Jon's mouth.

“Mm-hm.”

They lay like that, bodies lightly twined, almost kissing on Stephen's bed.

“Think we should get married?” Jon asks, after a while. “Would that convince them?”

“We could try it,” Stephen says. “On Sunday.”

“You want to?”

Stephen thinks about it – Jon can feel it, somehow, through his fingertips, thought radiating from Stephen's brain, out through his nervous system, perceptible in his skin.

“Sure,” he says at last. “We can do that. Just say the word. I'm all over it. And by all over it, I mean – provided you get me a nice enough ring.”

“Obviously. Only the best.”

“I'm not cheap, Jon.”

“No, you're expensive.”

Stephen snorts.

Jon adds, “Think they'll believe us at the courthouse?”

His immediate response is a yawn.

“Only one way to find out,” Stephen says. “Bed?”

“Sure.”

And, as they maneuver under the covers, nestling and curling, movements made slow by satiation and fatigue, the words echo, again, in Jon's head.

_We can do that._

It seems incredible to him; but they really can.


	6. Chapter 6

Friday, Jon is sleepy and fucked-out – all day, more or less, encouraged into relative docility by Stephen's close, affectionate attention. He wakes up as he fell asleep – wrapped in Stephen's arms, head against his chest, for all the world as if they haven't moved all night. It's a strange, soft feeling, the stillness of total contentment, and he's not sure he's ever felt it before. It triggers something inside him, some long-suppressed impulse to _need_ that keeps him going back, wanting more, pressing into Stephen's side on the couch, initiating long hugs in the kitchen. If he had any sense of being humored, he would pull himself together and try to stop – but Stephen fucks him again in the shower, so slow and deep, and his hands are never less than worshipful wherever they might land, his lips nuzzling soft adoration into Jon's neck, cheeks and temples.

There's a truly astonishing amount of cuddling that day and Jon feels – loved. Is the word, still, the word between them, around them, inside them. Jon has never felt more loved and the thrill of it, the joy of it, sends him deeper, burrowing, as close to Stephen as he can get without getting inside him again, or getting Stephen back into him. And that sounds – Jon shivers.

It's evening, almost, when the thought comes, and they're cooking dinner. Stephen is cooking dinner, anyway, more comfortable in the kitchen than Jon's ever been. He's making – Jon's not sure what he's making, but there's a pot of water on one of burners and a cutting board surrounded by raw food on the counter so he'll guess some kind of soup. Jon doesn't really care. Soup's okay. He'll eat pretty much anything Stephen cooks and this particular soup endears itself to him by being a relatively stationary enterprise, allowing Jon to stand still, hugging Stephen from behind as he works at the cutting board.

He nuzzles Stephen's neck with his cheek, presses his lips to his nape and lingers, wrapped in happiness. Stephen holds his hands, sometimes, pausing his cutting to cover them with his own. Now and again of his breaths goes a little long, a little deep, not quite a sigh but close. It's the kind of idyllic domesticity that only happens in movies or books, in the happy epilogue or just before everything goes to hell. Jon decides to believe, for the moment, anyway, that this is the happy ending. The alternative already haunts his darker nights.

Stephen squeezes his hands then reaches back as if to touch his face. Jon bites his fingertips and he laughs.

“Lemme go, babe,” he says. “I've got to dump this in the pot.”

“Mf.” Jon pushes his face into his back and sighs.

“I agree completely. We still have to eat.”

“Mf.” He leans his cheek into his nape, again, opens his eyes. He has no idea how long they've been closed but he has to blink away spots when he shifts up to look over Stephen's shoulder.

The cutting board is covered with neat piles of diced vegetables. Vegetables Jon sure as hell wasn't involved with, but when has Stephen had a chance to go shopping? Did he have them delivered? The idea of Stephen casually answering the door for grocery deliveries while Jon sleeps naked in his bed is an interesting one. But even more interesting is what Jon can see a few inches in front of the cutting board – Stephen's pants, which are – 

Jon leans in a little more and hears Stephen give a soft huff of laughter.

“Mm.” Jon kisses the side of his neck and ghosts a hand down over his half-formed erection.

“Oh.” The laughter goes out of Stephen and he shivers. Jon thinks he didn't realize he was getting hard. “I don't – ”

“Mm.” Jon nips at the corner of his jaw and decides dictionary words might help. “If I let you go,” he says, “can I handle that for you?” He begins, very gently, to rub.

“D-depends.” Stephen's back is arching, pressing his ass into Jon so his hand has to give chase to continue his feather light caress. “On what you mean by 'handle'.”

Jon smiles and presses down with his palm while he grinds his own growing hardness against his ass. Stephen moans.

“You gonna let me suck you off, baby?” Jon asks.

“Oh, fuck.”

Jon kisses his jaw again and releases him.

“Take that as a yes,” he says and leans back into the counter behind them.

“Motherfucker.” Stephen turns to look at him, breathless, pinker than usual. Jon grins back.

“Water's boiling, babe,” he says.

Stephen stares at him a moment longer, eyes coal bright and that's a look Jon can recognize, now – the one that says the structural integrity of his own shirt is about to be sorely tested. It sends a thrill through him, chest to belly and on down so he allows his grin to fade and ducks his head, biting his lower lip as he looks up at Stephen through his eyelashes. Slowly, he swallows and sees Stephen do the same, the movement of his throat making Jon's cock throb.

Stephen curses and turns away, back to the cutting board, and in a few deft motions empties it into the pot, stirs in the waiting spices, and turns it down to a simmer. Jon watches all this, the quick flicks of hands, the tense line of back under his t-shirt, the way those frayed khakis fit just so at his waist and he imagines – he _knows_ how Stephen's skin will feel as he peels them away.

Then Stephen is turning around and Jon just has time to lift his chin and hold out his open hands before Stephen's plastered against him, again, hauling him in and almost off his feet, with a kiss so hard their teeth knock and Jon can already feel his lips bruising as he pushes his tongue into Stephen's mouth, fingers tangling in his dark hair. Stephen's leaning, a little off-balance, and Jon turns him, pushes back against his weight, gets him back against the counter edge without breaking their kiss. Stephen is sucking on his tongue, making soft, hungry noises as his hands tangle in Jon's shirt. His mouth is wet, eager, and it's a temptation to stay here and get lost in it but Stephen's cock is waiting, hard behind the zipper, and Jon wants it. He hasn't had that many chances to do this.

Jon catches Stephen's hands in his and twists out of the kiss. A moment later he freezes with his eyes locked on Stephen's, inkwells of desire over hrose-stained cheeks and the darker pink of his lips.

“God,” Jon says. “You're gorgeous. How the – ”

One of Stephen's eyebrows inches up, anticipating, and Jon stops them both with another kiss, gentler than the last but insistent, and long enough for Stephen to gasp and melt into before Jon pulls back and drops to his knees.

Not for the first time that month, Jon wonders how he's managed to make it this far without breaking a hip or something but his own advanced age pales in importance confronted by Stephen's straining khakis.

“Mm.” He takes him by the hips and holds him still against the counter. Stephen starts to say something, Jon's name maybe, but it catches in his mouth as Jon leans in and presses his cheek to the bulge.

“God – ”

Jon's probably imagining he can feel its pulse but he's not imagining the heat of it, firm through layers of fabric. He rubs his cheek into it, fascinated, then bestows an open-mouthed kiss. Stephen gives a strangled moan and Jon looks up to find him dark eyes burning into him over a mouth open for heavy breath. With Jon's pause, Stephen closes his parted lips then licks them, a visible effort to gather himself. Jon smiles and Stephen almost manages a glare.

“Well?” he says, but his voice cracks as Jon runs fingertip over where he imagines the tip is. Jon shrugs.

“Just appreciating you,” he says.

A smile flickers across Stephen's face and Jon feels him relax a little.

“Are you really?” he asks.

“What else?”

He rubs his finger up over his erection then down again. A tremble goes through Stephen and his hips arch forward. Jon smiles.

“You know how you can really show you appreciate me?” Stephen asks.

Jon bites back a laugh and widens his eyes as he looks up at him.

“Suck your cock?” he suggests.

“It would be nice,” Stephen says. “Seeing as it was your idea and all.”

Jon snorts.

“Much as I'd like to take credit,” he says as he reaches for his zipper, “I didn't invent the blow job.”

“That's – ah – ” Stephen's head drops back as Jon eases down his pants and his erection is freed. It's already wet around the head. Joy too pure for the occasion bubbles up in Jon's chest and he casts another demure glance up.

“Happy to see me,” he says and wraps his hand around it.

A low sound drifts down to Jon as Stephen looks at him, again.

“Always,” he says. “God. Will you just – _do_ it, please?”

Jon laughs and licks the head to hear him groan.

“All you had to do was ask,” he says.

Stephen sputters a protest as Jon's lips close around his cock.

“Ah, god – ”

“Mm.”

Maybe he's nuts, but Stephen tastes good – not his semen, maybe, but his skin, hot and lush against his tongue, no matter where Jon happens to lick, and every time it's inside him, his mouth or up his ass, Jon thinks no one else has ever felt this good, has ever fit him this well.

One of Stephen's hands comes up to twine into his hair and Jon sucks him deeper, harder, drawing back then moving in again, down to the base, and swallows. Stephen moans loud and Jon agrees, echoing on his next draw back and Stephen makes another sound, almost anguished, and shoves his head back down. Jon was expecting it, anticipating it, and he goes without hesitation, moaning harder as he takes his cock deep, back into his throat.

“Jon, fuck – ”

Jon doesn't get off on having his face fucked like Stephen does but he does get off on Stephen, on his own ability to get those noises out of him, on the wild look in his dark eyes and how he can make Stephen forget to be gentle – how he can trust Stephen to forget without risking hurt.

“Jon – ”

Stephen's thrusting against Jon's hands at his hips, demanding, and Jon gives, sucking hard and moaning now and again when Stephen holds his hair too tight or makes a particularly appealing sound.

“Jon – Jon – oh, fuck – ”

That broken note, this particular shudder mean he's getting close and Jon, enchanted by his own familiarity with Stephen's body, doubles down, works his tongue harder.

“Fuck, Jon, so hot – god, you – Jon, _fuck_ – ”

He comes in a splatter of profanity and Jon keeps him through it, taking and swallowing everything he gives up. Then he slides his mouth off and away and, with his hands, pulls.

Stephen drops with a grunt and accepts Jon onto his lap and into his arms with the befuddled grace of the post-orgasmic. Jon takes hold of the back of his neck and kisses him while his free hand fumbles to get his own pants open. Stephen drags him closer, kisses him deeper as his arms close around Jon's waist. Jon frees his aching cock in time to find it pressed between them, hard against Stephen's belly, and he was just going to jerk off but this is okay, too, and, fuck, he would ask permission or something but it's beyond okay, it's too damn good, it's fucking perfect, and Jon throws his arms around Stephen's shoulders as he begins moving against him, hips and breath going in short, ragged bursts.

Stephen's answer is a soft moan, deep into his mouth, and hands, hot and strong, shoving Jon's barely-lowered pants down to wrap about his ass. He pulls him in tight, rubs and squeezes as Jon grinds into him, then breaks off the kiss to look him in the eye.

His face is flushed, mere inches from Jon's, eyes deep as some private sea, as he says, “Beautiful, fuck, so – ”

Jon seals their mouths together again, face flaming as he pushes harder against him. Strong fingertips are at Jon's entrance, rubbing, a moment's warning before they breach him; first one, to its first knuckle, and then a second, pressed in alongside. Jon breaks from his mouth with a curse and arches back before pushing forward again. It feels good, kind of rough but so good, so hot, Stephen's hands against him, inside him, right there with him, and their bodies wrapped up together, and Stephen's mouth against Jon's ear, his wet lips moving, and he's talking – _god, fuck_ – he's saying, “Come on.” His voice is a current crackling through Jon's bloodstream, a nicotine high when hasn't had a smoke in a week. Stephen's breathing hard and Jon's moaning but he can still hear him, still hear him say, “Come on, baby, that's it, come on, love you, love you so much, so hot, fucking amazing, you're – come on, Jon, come for me, come on, now, please – ”

Jon's always been soft for a boy with manners. He groans, hard, one last time, and comes.

 

Jon has to get off him, eventually, but standing is too much to ask so he simply drops off to one side and sits with his back against the dishwasher while Stephen gets up to tend to his pot, now throwing off steam on the stovetop. Jon blinks up at his back and sighs a little as Stephen pulls his pants back into place. Though it's not a bad idea – Jon's ass is kind of cold.

So he hitches up his hips enough to redress then turns his attention to Stephen, again, just in time to see him peel off his shirt.

“Mm.”

It's nothing Jon hasn't seen before, of course, but never from this precise angle and, come to think of it, he's never really gotten to _watch_ Stephen strip, has he? He's been in the room for it, helped him out with it, but never sat back and watched the clothes come off – the slip of buttons, parting of fabric, slow baring of all that pale skin, of the dark hair that clusters and trails down his chest, the shift of bone and muscle beneath – God, that sounds like a good idea. Maybe not full-on strip tease with music and shit, too easy, they're comedians for fuck's sake, but just watching him undress, nice and slow, one thing at a time – Jon will do it, too, if Stephen wants. Granted, he might like to watch from behind.

Jon looks to the hollow at the base of Stephen's spine, up it's arced line, bisecting the firm width of his back, to the nape of his neck – sensitive skin stretched taut with his head inclined, softer held straight and how many times has Jon wanted move in and kiss him there, to trail his fingers over the spot and see if he trembles? How many times, in the last year, has Jon felt that urge and held himself back? In the last five years? In the last ten?

He sighs and, with the expulsion of air, relaxes. He can do that now – touch there, kiss there, if he likes. Right now, he could get up and do that. And, if he doesn't feel like getting up right now, no problem. He'll still be able to do it later, when he has a little more energy or when Stephen comes a little closer. Later. He can choose when to do that. Good thought.

“Care to share?”

Jon blinks himself back into awareness to meet Stephen's soft brown eyes.

“Or were you just sighing over my exquisitely manly physique?” Stephen slaps the little extra weight nested around his belly. Jon giggles.

“Now that you mention it,” he says and smiles up at him through the hand he hadn't realizes he'd pressed to his lips. “Yeah, I was.”

Stephen laughs and turns back to the soup.

“Well, I was,” Jon tells him, then yawns and stretches his legs out in front of him. “You've got a really nice back. And your neck. I like it.”

“Is _that_ why you'll only fuck me from behind?”

“No, I – Actually, I've only done that the once. Should I make it a habit?”

“If you like my back so much.”

“You should strip for me,” Jon says.

Stephen glances back, smiling.

“Should I really?” he asks.

Jon shrugs.

“It would be hot,” he says. His eyes trail down to Stephen's waist, where it curves out to his hip, emphasized by the way his body turns to look at him. “Really hot.”

Stephen looks back at the pot rather than respond, to finish whatever arcane ritual he's been performing over it. He pauses to stretch and, though Jon grimaces at the audible crack of joints, he's fascinated by the roll of his shoulders, by the dip and slide of their blades. He swallows.

Stephen moves to put one foot on either side of Jon's out-stretched legs and there he stands, looking down, until Jon arches an eyebrow and asks, “What, so you can sigh over my manly physique but not the other way around? Is that what this is?”

“Of course.” Stephen lowers himself and shuffles forward to sit lightly on Jon's lap. “Or I would be able to,” he says and slides his hands from Jon's shoulders down his chest, “if I could see it.”

Jon covers Stephen's hands with his own then meets his eyes again, and smiles. He's done it a thousand times – over coffee, over scripts; across crowded rooms, side-by-side on set. The day they met he did it, first with the polite, self-deprecating smile of the guy who'd just maybe-stolen his job. That smile was gone within moments, transformed into the one Jon hides in his hand when he's about to crack up, which then composed, with an effort, into the smile of a man who's suddenly looking forward to the next dozen-plus years a lot more.

Jon always smiles when he meets Stephen's eyes.

It shouldn't be that much different, now.

A long moment later, a breath goes out of Stephen and he nestles their foreheads together. They sit, breathing, and the warm air flows from them and melds in between as their eyes slip closed. Stephen's fingers are kneading into Jon's chest and Jon gathers them up to kiss, just the tips, while Stephen sighs. There's a blush to his cheeks, soft, too lovely to ignore, so Jon grazes his lips along first the right, then the left, then presses in close to his ear.

“Seriously,” he says. “You should strip for me.”

For an instant, Stephen freezes. And then he breaks, giggling to put Jon to shame, and pushes his face down into the crook of his neck. Jon grins and hugs him tight around the shoulders, then squirms as curled fingertips rake down his chest.

“Hey!” Jon struggles as they dig into his sides. “What? I'm just sayin'. Why have we never done that before?”

Stephen's fading laughter spikes again and he muffles it against Jon's mouth.

“Never?” he asks a long moment later. “If you mean why haven't we, in the space of the last twenty-eight days, progressed from frenzied, honeymoonish, any-inclined-plane-will-do-if-a-flat-surface-isn't-available-style fucking to enacting fantasies people generally save for when they're getting bored – Jon! Are you sick of me already?”

Jon grabs his ass, prompting – and this is true – a high-pitched squeak, then hauls him in tight to bite his neck.

“Mf,” he says and catches Stephen with a hand at his nape. “Not now.” He shifts down his bare shoulder to bite again. “Not ever.” Heat goes through him, embarrassment mingled with lust, as he adds, “I just really like watching you get naked.” Another bite, to Stephen's clavicle, this time, and Jon pauses to suck on it. Stephen is doing something he can only describe at purring, hands kneading Jon's shoulders in slow, strong motions. Jon lets go to massage the bitten spot with the flat of his tongue and Stephen whimpers.

After a few long seconds, Jon leaves it with a touch of his lips and moves up the arch of his neck with slow, soft kisses. Stephen's hands relax as he moves, ending by going limp over Jon's shoulders.

Jon gives his mouth a kiss, is welcomed with a press of tongue, then guides Stephen's head down to his shoulder, one hand still cradling his skull.

He pets him for a short while, comfortable under his weight, content with skin under his palm and soft hair sliding in his fingers.

_Not ever._

A tremor of laughter goes under Jon's hand. He dips his head closer to his ear and says, “What?”

“You like watching me get naked?”

Jon grins and kisses his head.

“I do,” he says. “And my shrink says I should spend more time doing the things I enjoy.”

Stephen snorts. His hands have started to wander, again, up and down along Jon's sides.

“Are you even seeing a shrink, right now?” he asks.

“If I were, I bet that's what she would say.”

“Your hypothetical shrink is a woman?”

“Isn't yours?”

Stephen doesn't answer. He shifts his head so his chin is hooked over Jon's shoulder and leans into him. If he weren't slouching and leaning in, or if Jon weren't sitting up straight, this probably wouldn't work that well. Jon trails his fingernails up Stephen's spine.

“Do I get to see you strip, too?” Stephen asks, ending on a sigh.

Jon kisses his shoulder.

“Are you agreeing?”

“Only if you do it, too.”

“I thought you were the exhibitionist in the room.”

“You're on TV just as much as I am.” Stephen yawns. “Maybe more. And who says I can't be a voyeur, too? That feels really nice, by the way.”

The hand Jon's kept at his nape has been busy, rubbing circles with thumb and fingers on either side.

“That?” he says and rubs a little harder.

“Yeah.” His voice is a sigh. Jon wonders if anyone has ever been this happy sitting on a kitchen floor. He turns his head to kiss Stephen's ear, the closest skin he can reach.

“Okay,” he says. “I'll strip for you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. If you do it for me.”

“Oh, good.”

Jon expects him to say something like 'I've got the music all picked out' but he's quiet, settling closer into his arms with an earthy sigh.

_Right. Back-rubbing._

Aside from the attention paid to his nape, Jon has been rubbing and scratching along his spine. That would explain why his muscles have dissolved. Smiling, Jon stops rubbing to cup the back of his neck and lets his other palm come to rest in the center of his back.

He says, “You can't fall asleep on me here, babe. We're pushing fifty. It would be a bad idea.”

“Meh.”

Not positive agreement but he shifts back a little, dark hair falling forward, smiling. Jon thinks he's never seen anything quite like him, that nothing and no one has ever made him feel this warm. He runs his fingers up the side of Stephen's face then into his hair, and lets Stephen pull him in for another long kiss.

One of Stephen's legs is asleep, to judge by the cussing as they stagger to their feet, and Jon's ass is numb but he doesn't say anything – just shuffles around out of the way and, when Stephen checks the soup, again, leans at right angles to him on the kitchen island. The room is starting to smell good, like something other than them fucking.

Another thought occurs to Jon – recurring since they started this but never so prominent or insistent as now. He smiles and waits for Stephen to put the wooden spoon down.

“I also think you should spank me,” he says and smiles all the wider when Stephen promptly chokes to death.

Or nearly to death, anyway. He goes red – bright red – and falls back to lean on the other counter again. It's a moment or two before he gets himself enough under control to stare Jon in the face.

“You okay?” Jon asks.

Stephen snorts and raises an eyebrow.

“Oh, I'm fine,” he says. “Just – repeat that for me.”

Jon considers going over to him but, now that the shock is fading, he thinks Stephen might grab him. Which wouldn't be entirely unwelcome, but it would reduce the probability of productive conversation occurring to nil, and discussion seems like a good idea here. So he shrugs and repeats himself.

“You should spank me,” he says. “Not right now, I mean. You're busy. But sometime. If that's all right.”

The flush that had been fading rushes back and Stephen swallows. His eyes are glowing dark, bright as an eclipse.

“Oh, that's more than all right,” he says. “I just have to ask – why?”

That one's harder. Jon shrugs again and feels himself go red to match.

“It was never one of my kinks before,” he says. “But you slap my ass sometimes when we're fucking and that never did much for me, either.”

“And now?” His voice sounds hot and rough and Jon thinks this is what the cornered antelope must feel like, just before the lion pounces. It's kind of sexy.

“And now,” he says, “I'd like to try it.” He smirks. “I think I can trust you with my ass.”

“Not remotely,” Stephen replies. It's not really a joke.

Jon licks his lips, suddenly very dry.

“I know you won't hurt me, Stephen,” he says. “And so – I'd like to try it.”

The fever of intensity drains from Stephen's face, replaced by something almost like shame. Jon can't _not_ go to him now, so he does, wraps his arms around his waist and gives him a slow, thorough kiss, pushing affection into him and finding it doubled on return. They sink against each other and when Stephen hides his face in his neck, hugging him tight, Jon reciprocates and scratches, again, down his spine.

“The things I want to do to you,” Stephen says, so softly Jon wouldn't hear if they weren't so very close. Jon can imagine what he wants to do, is looking forward to knowing if there's anything he's left out. So he nuzzles up to Stephen's good ear and replies, “So do them. We can take turns.”

 

Saturday, Jon goes out and buys a ring. This is partially self-defense. It's around two in the afternoon and he's not sure Stephen's stopped staring at his ass since breakfast. If not staring then groping. The constant attention is kind of hot but it's also kind of weird. He's still not used to being the object of this level of desire.

_The weight of evidence._

He smiles and shakes his head as he gathers his things from the table by the door, then calls, “Hey, baby?”

Stephen materializes in the time it takes him to look up. He's biting his lip.

“You leaving?” he asks. His eyes are a little wider than usual. Jon reaches up to clasp his chin and rub a thumb over his lower lip. Stephen stops abusing it and smiles, which is much better. Jon strokes over that smile once then gives it a soft kiss.

“Going out, yeah,” he says. “I – did plan to come back.” Which doesn't seem like an unfair liberty, considering he's taken it a hundred times, pre- and post-descent into debauchery.

Stephen beams.

“Okay, good,” he says. “I was just – checking.”

Apparently actual lies are harder than improv. That's one of the worst Jon has ever been told. He stares; Stephen looks at the ceiling.

“I've been – a little intense, today.”

_Oh, for fuck's sake._

Never mind that that is, in fact, part of Jon's motivation for going out; Stephen's not the one who should be feeling guilty for Jon's neurotic discomfort with being considered attractive. He drags Stephen in by the shoulders and kisses him properly, firmly.

“Yes, Stephen,” he says, holding him still. “I am mortally offended by your enthusiasm for the kinky sex act I personally requested you perform on me.” He kisses him again to keep him quiet. “So offended,” he continues, containing a smirk at Stephen's bemused expression. “I am _running away_.” He kisses him a third time, pats his cheek with deliberate condescension, and lets go. “I'll be back in an hour,” he says and leaves Stephen standing at the door with a hand to his cheek and an embarrassed smile on his lips.

The other reason Jon's doing this now is pure fear – more accurately, fear of fear. Metafear. He's kind of terrified he's going to panic, or Stephen will, or that either this hypothetical panic or his dread of it will freeze him up and he'll never work up the nerve to actually do this. Right now, the idea of getting married or being engaged is kind of an intellectual exercise and he's hoping an actual, formal proposal will solidify it in his head. He had already resigned himself to living in sin.

'Living in sin' reminds him to call his mother. Trying to figure out why seems like a more appealing prospect than actually doing it but Jon's already decided today is the day he's not putting off uncomfortable personal matters. He veers off to stand by the subway entrance, out of the path of foot traffic, pulls out his phone and dials. As it rings, he tugs his hat down and wills himself unrecognizable to passers-by.

It's not until his mom answers he realizes he has no plan for what he's actually going to say.

_Oh, shit._

There's the panic. He opens with, “Hi, Mom. I'm about to get engaged.”

Silence. Today has taken on the quality of a farce.

“On my way to buy the ring. What do – Where do you buy engagement rings?”

That should probably have occurred to him before _this very second_. There was this vague idea of 'jeweler' in his head but that's a little broad, now that he thinks about it. Maybe if he were in Mythical Small Town America circa 1954. The problem distracts him so it's a moment before he hears his mother saying his name. His full name. His old name. He winces.

“Yes?”

“Are there any particular conclusions I should be drawing from the timing of this announcement?” she asks.

Timing? _Oh, right._

He says, “There are probably a couple.”

She sighs.

“Is this why Stephen has answered your phone three times in the last month?”

_Really?_

“Really?”

She sighs again. Jon often makes his mother sigh.

“When are you bringing him for dinner?”

_Oh, god._

This conversation has become too surreal. Jon needs to not be having it anymore. He says, “Well, Mom, thanks for your support, I'll let you know about dinner. Gotta go do stuff, love you, bye.”

Jon is a coward. He knows this. He accepts it. He is at peace with his decision to put his phone on silent until there is a ring safely buttoned into one of the side pockets of his pants and he's on his way home.

 

He doesn't propose immediately. Just having the ring is enough validation for the moment and when he gets back there are more important things to do. Things like walk in the door and tuck the ring into the pocket of a winter coat hung up in the closer; things like go into the living room and have his greeting freeze in his throat when Stephen looks up, smile wide with welcome, eyes full of warmth; things like totally forget whatever he was going to say about his outing because this is what he's going to be coming home to for the rest of his life and what point is there, really, to thinking about anything else; things like crossing the room, bypassing such formalities as conversation in favor of kissing Stephen breathless then blowing him right there on the sofa, Stephen's fingers clenching tight in his hair, CNN rambling on behind him, drowned out by startled, ecstatic moans from above.

By the time he gets them both undressed, afterward, he's hard enough to destroy solar systems and Stephen is enough recovered to participate fully and enthusiastically in being fucked, groping for Jon's ass and clinging to it, helping to guide every thrust to just the right angle, while Jon sweats and swears and at last buries his face in Stephen's chest, muffling a guttural shriek as he comes.

It's while they're lying naked on the sofa with each others' fluids still inside them Jon says his mother expects them for dinner sometime soon.

Stephen replies, “Mine, too.” There's a slight logistical problem with that. Before Jon can point it out, Stephen adds, “What are you doing with our next break?”

Jon presses his face back into his chest. “Having lots of sex with you,” he says, “in South Carolina.”

 

So he doesn't propose that night. He waits until Sunday afternoon, just before they head in to work, when Stephen is staring down at his coffee, refusing to meet Jon's eyes as he says, “So how are we doing this?”

'This' is coming out. They actually have to do it, this time.

“Hold that thought,” Jon says and goes to get the ring from its hiding place. Rather than getting on one knee, he drags his chair into Stephen's personal space and sits down. “This might be a good place to start,” he says and opens the box.

The pause is so long Jon would be worried if that weren't the face Stephen makes when he's resisting the urge to pin him to something. Stephen reaches out, at last, as if he's going to touch it but stops himself. His fingers curl into a loose fist then relax again before he says, “Yeah. I think it is.”

Jon takes this as permission to catch Stephen's left wrist and slip the ring into place. He doesn't realize his hands are shaking until it's done and he's looking down at the white gold band, transformed to something sublime by Stephen's acceptance. The ring was strangely heavy in his hand, heavier than it felt in the shop, and it's like he's passed on a part of himself. He finds himself thinking they should pick out the wedding rings together but maybe platinum would be good – and then he's shaking all over and planning out their wedding rings ( _ **their** wedding rings, his and Stephen's, what the fuck_ ) in his head and he has to look up and meet Stephen's eyes because maybe he knows what's supposed to happen next.

He does. They start kissing and don't stop for a while. It seems like the thing to do.

It's Stephen who ends it, gripping Jon's shirt front, pushing him away like it's the last thing in the world he wants. His eyes are on his own left hand, where Jon hadn't noticed he'd wrapped his own tight around the last two fingers. “Let's go,” Stephen says, unmoving. “We'll never make it out if we don't.”

“I guess this is why people usually get engaged in the evening,” Jon observes.

Stephen laughs and lets go of his shirt.

“I guess so,” he says, and they stand, for a moment, staring at his hand, cradled in both of Jon's, at the shine of silver, the flash of captured light.

“I didn't actually expect you to get me a ring,” Stephen says. “I thought it was a joke.”

Jon doesn't answer. He thinks, for a moment, that he might, that there's something he wants to say, but what's in him refuses to take audible form. He draws Stephen's hand up and presses the ring to his lips.

Jon _has_ this, now. He's doing it. They're doing it. And the whole world is going to know about it.

Their reverie could go on forever, would probably end in the bedroom, whatever their intent, if the world hadn't chosen that moment to intervene.

The phone is halfway through its second ring when Jon resurfaces and about to start the fourth when he finds it on the kitchen counter, beside the sink.

“Hello?” he says and turns to find Stephen has followed him. This seems reasonable so he slips an arm around his waist and brings him closer.

_Better._

“Jon?” It's John Oliver. He sounds – distressed might be the word. Maybe.

“Uh, yeah?” Stephen presses him back against the counter and wraps his arms around him, lips against his hairline. “What's happening, John?”

“Jon,” he says. “Have you seen – Did you – Is there something you've forgotten to tell us?”

Stephen's kissing his face, gentle presses of lips wherever he can reach, leaving spots of moisture behind that chill when he moves on. It's distracting and Jon holds on tighter.

“I – don't think so?”

“Like, I don't know – You're playing getting to know you games with Stephen Colbert?”

“What?”

Stephen mumbles in his ear, “Up,” and in the brief scramble to get onto the counter he almost misses what John says next.

“Are. You. Having. Sex. With. Stephen.”

Jon wraps his legs around Stephen's waist and buries the fingers of his free hand in his hair, considering. Does this count as having sex?

Stephen chooses this moment to begin sucking in earnest on his neck, just under his jaw.

“Yes,” Jon says. “And I, uh – ” Stephen bites down; Jon realizes that this will be his first visible hickey and shudders. “I did tell you that. More than once.”

“You did – Oh my god. Jon.” That may be horror in his voice; Jon can't quite tell over the pounding of his own heart. “Are you having sex with him _right now?_ ”

There's a little shriek and a crash from John's end of the line. Jon tugs Stephen up, away from his neck, and begins to take deep breathes, collecting himself as John's cursing rises and settles. Stephen holds him, their temples pressed together.

“Jon?” John's back, definitely annoyed but, Jon suspects, not solely at them.

“Not right this second,” Jon concedes. “But – things are moving in that direction.”

Stephen tries to pull back but Jon's not ready for the distance. He holds him still and shifts the phone enough to murmur against his cheek, “Just a second, baby.”

“Oh my god,” John says, again. “You _are._ ”

Another crash and scuffle. Jon closes his eyes and snuggles up to Stephen to wait.

“I told you,” he says, there's no one at the other end to catch it.

In the next moment, Samantha Bee is yelling in his ear.

“Stewart. Why are you and Colbert playing tonsil hockey on the internet?”

It's loud enough for Stephen to catch, now that he's paying attention, and his silent laughter feels good against Jon's body.

“You're going to have to be more specific, Sam.”

“Pictures, Jon. There are _pictures_ of you mauling his face on a street corner.”

Mauling – ? Oh, okay.

“If you call that mauling,” Jon says, “I'm worried about your sex life.”

Stephen laughs, again, then puts his mouth to the tender place behind Jon's ear. Jon sighs.

“For the – Could you please not make out while you're on the phone with me?”

“We're not,” Jon says. “I'm just sitting here. And he's just standing here. Hugging me.”

“Jon.”

“Sam,” he says and his voice catches on the next words. “We're just – We just got engaged. Right now. Ten minutes ago. You can see the ring, later, if you want. It's – ”

He stops, eyes squeezed shut. Stephen presses his forehead to Jon's temple and Jon shivers in his arms.

“You're serious,” Sam says. It's softer, now.

Jon says, “Completely.”

She takes a breath.

“When are you coming in?”

Jon relaxes a little.

“Soon,” he says. “We'll be there – I'll be there soon. And he'll be at the Report. And we'll go from there.”

“Yeah?” Sam says.

Jon's brain becomes aware of how his body is reacting to Stephen's.

“Yeah,” he says, then smiles. “We'll – uh – We'll just be a little late.”

It's nice when she laughs. Jon feels better. He threads his fingers back into Stephen's hair and holds on; one of Stephen's hands is moving down his back.

“I'll see you later, Sam,” he says.

Before he hangs up, she answers but after he couldn't tell you what she said; after, he's already kissing Stephen and nothing else can find foothold in his head.

They'll be in soon. They'll go from there.

Right now, right here, he's already long gone.


End file.
